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yiE DE BOHEME 



VIE DE BOHEME 

A PATCH OF ROMANTIC PARIS 

BY ORLO 
WILLIAMS 




RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON 






First Published 1913 



JDN 17 mi 



PRINTED AT 
THE BALLANTYNE PRESS 
LONDON 



TO 
MY WIFE 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. LA VRAIE BOHEME 1 

II. A FRINGE OF HISTORY 21 

III. LE MAL DU SIECLE 35 

IV. PARISIAN SOCIETY 65 
V. LES VIVEURS 87 

VI. LA BOHEME ROM ANTIQUE 109 

VII. THE SECOND "CENACLE" 126 

VIII. LA BOHEME GALANTE 158 

IX. SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 194 

X. MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 219 

XI. AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 252 

XII. THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 282 

INDEX 303 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

loface 
page 

La Cydalise. By Camille Rogier Frontispiece 

The Spirit of Romanticism 44 

(From the covei* of a Romantic periodical) 

BousiNGOTS. By Fr-ances Trollope 56 
(From "Paris and the Parisians in 1835 ") 

Les Champs Elysees. By Eugeme Lami 67 

A Viveur. By Gavarni 78 

Fashionables. By Gavarni 86 

Petrus Borel. By Louis Boulanger 138 

(After an etching by Celestus Nauteuil) 

Celestin Nanteuil, By Himself 142 

A Festivity in the Impasse du Doyenn:^ 168 

(From "Les Confessions" by Arsfene Houssaye) 

GiRARD DE Nerval 190 

A Grisette, By Gavarni 2l6 

A Bal Masque at the Opera. By Eugene Lami 274 

The Galop Infernal. By Gavarni 276 

A Guingette 278 

The Rue St.-Denis 294 

The Rue de la Tixanderie. By Meryon 295 

The Rue Pirouette. By Meryon 297 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 

La Boheme, c^est le stage de la vie artistique ; 
c'est la preface de V Academie, de VHotel-Dieu ou 
de la Morgue. 

MuRGER : " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." 

If there is one reason for which the growth of news- 
papers during the last century may be looked at askance, 
it is the journalist's persistency in perpetuating phrases. 
Phrases and catchwords at the moment of invention 
are works of a peculiar genius, of which some men have 
an abnormal share, though it may crop out suddenly 
in the most unlikely places ; but a good catchword, 
that crystallization of a drop of some elusive current 
that is momentarily passing through public opinion, 
that apt naming of some newly formed group of men 
or ideas, never comes out of an inkpot : it is essentially, 
as the French finely recognize, a mot, a pearl of speech. 
It darts out in some happy moment of human inter- 
course, often almost unconsciously, when the words 
on a man's lips are less than usual rebellious to the 
expression of his thoughts, or when the exhilaration 
of some public utterance has charged the air so that 
the little telling point, hitherto cold and dormant, 

1 A 



VIE DE BOHEME 



flashes suddenly into incandescence. Such a phrase, 
born on the lips of one, can only be nurtured on the 
lips of many : its success implies continued utterance. 
It becomes a heaven-sent convenience to save human 
circumlocution, a new topic for the dullards, a new toy 
for the biases. In these communicative days, indeed, 
journalism increases a thousand-fold the possibilities of 
its radiation, but a good catchword has always made its 
way without the help of print. There has never existed a 
human society, at any developed stage of civilization, 
that has not been perfectly capable of hitting off a new 
idea or a new group in some telling phrase or name 
without the intervention of a scribe. At the same time, 
conversational man, left to himself, is no less quick to 
forget than to invent. A new phrase properly fades as 
soon as the novelty of that which inspired it, but once 
it has appeared upon a single written page it has been 
given an artificial life of varying but incalculable 
duration. This artificial existence has been infinitely 
increased by the newspaper. The journalist, who has 
little time to think, is naturally loth to let a convenient 
label go, so that, long after its original parcel of 
ideas or beings has passed away, he will keep tagging 
it on to other parcels with a certain show of rele- 
vance which effectually conceals the fact that it ought 
long ago to have been filed for the etymological 
dictionary. 

A phrase which has thus lingered artificially in 

2 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 



common use is the word " Bohemian." Nobody can 
deny that it is a useful label, simply because it is so 
vague, conveying as it does the sense of some deliberate 
divergence from the usages of polite society, without 
being in the least embarrassingly clear as to the degree 
or direction of that divergence. It is a term, so 
apparently specific, so really loose, equally capable of 
carrying blame and admiration, which people will go 
on applying to men and women, their lives and their 
clothes, without inquiring whether there is in fact any 
answering reality. It would be easy enough to confuse 
its simple users by a few question. They might be 
asked, for instance, what a Bohemian is, when they 
would probably reply, in the slipshod phraseology of 
to-day, that he is an odd person who wears funny 
clothes and does quaint things. But then, it might 
be pointed out, a docker from Limehouse is equally 
odd and quaint from their point of view, though they 
do not call him a Bohemian ; on which they will rather 
pettishly explain that they mean artists and musicians 
and so on, people who don't " work." To help them out 
on this point, in fine, they mean people who potentially 
rank with the members of learned professions, but who 
choose to live a less respectable life, in which paying 
calls, dressing for dinner, and attending to the dictates 
of social morality are considered of small importance, 
though the exact degree of social unorthodoxy is left 
as undefined as the qualifying degree of artistic per- 

3 



VIE DE BOHEME 



formance. The same lady will comprehend in the 
term the middle-aged civil servant who haunts studios 
of an evening, wears pale tweeds, but is otherwise a 
pearl of inartistic chivalry, and the scaramouch of a 
painter, whom she calls " charming " because he is 
clever, and whose absorption in art has entirely ruined 
him as a social being. I propose another question. 
Why are Bohemians so called ? The answer seems 
easy — because they live in Bohemia. And Bohemia ? 
Again the label produces a difficulty. To pursue any 
geographical inquiries concerning Bohemia in a Socratic 
spirit would quickly produce exasperation in any 
catechumen, and I will presume the result without 
the method. The answers would generally amount to 
this : that it seems agreed, simply since the word is 
used, that there is a Bohemia, but its latitude and 
longitude are indefinable. It is not confined to Chelsea 
or St. John's Wood, or even, of course, to England ; 
apparently it transcends the ordinary differences of 
nationality, existing always and everywhere. The 
possibility of its having existed once and somewhere — 
I give away freely at this early stage the foundation of 
this book — never occurs, for labels have a tremendous 
potency of suggestion. Bohemia is commonly assumed 
to exist now in the midst of this commercial day. It 
is generally accepted — with more or less warmth 
according to individual tastes — as an institution not, 
perhaps, entirely desirable for itself, but a necessary 

4 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 



patch in the motley dress of civihzation. It is pro- 
claimed gleefully or admitted under constraint, as the 
case may be, that clever, artistic men and women, 
wisely or perversely, choose to gather there, and that 
certain epithets, such as quaint, amusing, unconventional 
— the ethical implications of the adjectives differing 
with their user — are applicable to it. But la vie de 
Boheme, once so vivid a reality, has now no tangible 
substance : it wanders about, the palest ghost of a 
legend, formless and indistinct. The young may 
look forward to it and the old pretend to look 
back on it, but young and old, in either case, are 
turning their mind's eye upon a mere abstraction. 
The word " Bohemian " has become as conventional 
as "gentleman," with less content for all its greater 
glamour. 

The glamour of Bohemia, too, is projected from a 
paradox. On the assumption that it exists, those who 
wish to live in Bohemia idealize it ; those who have 
lived in it boast of it ; and those who might have lived 
in it, but did not, pretend that they did. Yet those 
who wish to live in it know nothing of it, and those who 
lived in it, for all their boasting, have left it. It seems to 
take shape, like a mirage, only in prospect or retrospect. 
There are witnesses to the distant glint of its magic 
towers in the rosy mists of sunrise or the golden haze 
of sunset, but of the light and shade within its streets 
there are none, for those who might be supposed to be 

5 



VIE DE BOHEME 



passing through its gates are strangely reticent, and 
seem mysteriously to lose the sense of their glorious 
nationality. A man may say with a thrill, " I will be a 
Bohemian," or with a glow, " I was a Bohemian," but 
of him who said, "I am a Bohemian," the only proper 
view would be one of deepest suspicion. He would 
certainly be a masquerader. 

Yet many people, at least in England, do so mas- 
querade — people who affect Chelsea, slouch hats, and 
ill-cut garments, who haunt Soho restaurants, talk and 
smoke cigarettes in half a dozen studios, toady sham 
genius, flutter in emancipatory " movements," and 
generally do nothing on quite enough a year. Not long 
ago a distinguished artist, genially inspired by dinner 
at a club of Bohemian traditions and most respectable 
membership, gave utterance to the view that, though 
the velvet coat had disappeared before evening dress, 
the Bohemian still existed. Upon that a writer in an 
evening paper made the wise comment : 

" There are people, it is true, who indulge in mild 
unconventionality ; they feed in Soho, and talk of 
cabarets. But these people are seldom artists and 
never Bohemian. The unconventionality of these people 
is a mere outward pose, which compels any artist who 
wishes to preserve his individuality and good name to 
pay careful attention to the external forms. Bohe- 
mianism, such as it was, sprang up in Paris, and 
that is sufficiently good reason for its failure in 
England." 

6 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 

The journalist has here risen above the temptation 
of the label, and his words are just. The gist of the 
matter lies, perhaps, in his last sentence, but that 
point must wait its turn. There is no doubt that there 
exists in London, not to speak of other cities, a large 
body of people of varying ages, occupations, beliefs, and 
principles who keep up a masquerade of Bohemianism. 
As a body they are worthy citizens enough, whose 
intelligence on some subjects is above the average, 
but they are masqueraders none the less if they wish 
to pass as enfants de Boheme. A reason for this mas- 
querade may be found partly in the very human love 
of " dressing up " which is never to be discouraged, 
partly in the glorification of Bohemia in which writers 
of novels and reminiscences are prone to indulge. 
Probably George du Maurier's " Trilby " has been 
responsible for more misconceptions on this matter 
than any other single book, on account of its very 
charm, a charm that needs no further praise at this 
date. The author himself, who wrote about that which 
he knew, made no extravagant claims to have drawn 
Bohemia in the early part of "Trilby," but it is that 
which in the eyes of most of his readers he is unavoidably 
represented as doing. So far as Taffy, the Laird, and 
Little Billie are concerned, they are simply transplanted 
Britons of the Victorian era, art students with means 
enough to pursue their studies without pot-boiling and 
to keep open house for a collection of other joyous 

7 



VIE DE BOHEME 



young people, of whom Svengali was alone the complete 
Bohemian, while Trilby herself with perfect propriety 
mended their socks. Trilby's part in this studio life 
is a sentimental idyll which nobody would wish to 
destroy, but it is none the less true, in spite of her 
creator's plea for her quia multum amavit in a delightful 
page of circumlocution, that he has effectually distilled 
out of her any essence of Bohemianism which she is 
dimly represented as possessing. George du Maurier 
knew Paris when Bohemia was no more, but even he 
must have known the rougher, wilder, less comfortable 
side of the Quartier Latin. Yet that he glossed it over 
is perfectly comprehensible. Even those who lived to 
write about the Bohemia that once was could not help 
tinging their memories with the romantic yearning 
of middle age. In a life where hardship and happiness 
kaleidoscopically alternate, pain — especially in the shape 
of material want or the sense of unjust neglect — 
obscures in the moment of struggle the more brightly 
coloured glasses of health and joy which more often 
than not surround it. In retrospect, by a merciful 
dispensation, the sombre lines almost entirely disappear, 
only to be recalled by an unnatural effort of memory. 
What stood out in retrospect, in the special case of 
la vie de Boheme, was the happiness of youth that would 
never return, its insouciance, its untrammelled com- 
panionships, the poetry of its first love, its gaiety 
and irresponsible humour, its courage, its ready make- 

8 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 

shifts in adversity. The ex- Bohemian had, what the 
Bohemian had not, a contrast by which to measm-e his 
regrets — the cares of domesticity, the wearisome de- 
mands of society upon its members, the responsibiUties 
and cares of an assured position, howsoever humble, the 
dulHng of pleasure's edge, joints stiffening, hair bleach- 
ing. The snows of yesteryear were falling upon others 
now ; and that the young rogues might not be too up- 
lifted, he must write his militavi non sine gloria, hinting 
the while that the special glory of Bohemia paled at 
the precise moment of his exodus. George du Maurier 
poured over "Trilby" some of this romantic recollec- 
tion, and other less gifted novelists have done the same 
for certain coteries that have lived in London. To 
them is due much of the glamour still implied in the 
phrase " Bohemian," a glamour which is seldom 
corrected by a reading of George Gissing's " New Grub 
Street." Yet no conception of Bohemia into which the 
sombre details of that book will not naturally fit can 
possibly approach the truth. 

This last sentence, I am aware, may be used to 
challenge my acquaintance with the truth since I 
assume its existence. To any such challenge the whole 
of this book is an answer, and its reader will at the end, 
it is hoped, be in possession of at least as much truth 
as its author, if not the little more which criticism 
supplies. In the case of a subject so little complicated 
an elaborate initial summary of aims and processes 

9 



VIE DE BOHEME 



and steps of proof will be unnecessary. Those who 
wish to do so will have little difficulty in following a 
study, which provided no little entertainment to the 
student, of the life that was truly to be called Bohemian. 
I have been so far concerned to hint that I do not deal 
in any heterogeneous parcels which have come to pass 
under an old label. The label was applied at a particular 
time to a particular parcel, and the one and only 
original parcel is the vie de Boheme which in this book 
I attempt to unwrap. 

It might be supposed from the commonness of 
allusions to Bohemia and Bohemianism that the terms 
were contemporary, at least, with the intrusion of 
artists and men of letters into society, and that before 
the existence of the Bohemia whose capital is Prague 
the name of some other nation was, in the same way, 
taken in vain. However, this is not the case. The 
grceculus esuriens to whom the Roman poet so scornfully 
refers had no doubt many Bohemian qualities, but the 
emphasis of the taunt is laid on his foreign nationality, 
not upon his mode of existence. Even after the 
Bohemia of the atlas came into being it knew for many 
centuries no usurper of its name. Will Shakespeare, 
Ben Jonson, and the merry company of the " Mermaid " 
tavern neither called themselves nor were called 
Bohemians. Samuel Johnson, Goldsmith, and the other 
less distinguished inhabitants of Grub Street suffered 
many verbal indignities, but not that. Coleridge and 

10 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 



Charles Lamb might be alluded to as Bohemians now, 
but in their day the term had even yet not been in- 
vented. Murger's preface to " Scenes de la Vie de 
Boheme " proves that so late as 1846 a universal under- 
standing of his title could not be taken for granted, 
since he begins by carefully distinguishing the geo- 
graphical Bohemia from the artistic. The modern 
sense of the term originated, in fact, in Paris at the time 
of the Romantic movement, being only an extension 
of the meaning of "gipsy" or "vagabond" long 
attached to the word bohemien in France. Our 
" Bohemian " was introduced into the English language 
by Thackeray, who learnt it during his student-period 
in Paris. 

This piece of etymology, nugatory as it may appear, 
is, in fact, very important. It is the first real delimita- 
tion of our inquiry. La vie de Boheme is essentially a 
French term, and it is therefore fitting that we should 
examine its implications in that language. Murger in 
his preface is contradictory, but his very contradiction 
is pregnant and valuable. At the outset he applies 
the term bohemien to the literary and artistic vagabonds 
of all ages. " La Boheme dont il s'agit dans ce livre 
n'est point une race nee aujourd'hui, elle a existe de 
tous temps et partout, et pent revendiquer d'illustres 
origines." Homer, he says, was the first Bohemian 
of Greek antiquity, and his tradition was carried on 
by the medieval minstrels and troubadours ; Pierre 

11 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Gringoire and Fran9ois Villon, Clement Marot and 
Mathurin Regnier, Moliere and Shakespeare, Rousseau 
and D'Alembert were the leading citizens of their 
contemporary Bohemias. This brings Murger to his 
own day, of which he says : " Aujourd'hui comme 
autrefois, tout homme qui entre dans les arts, sans 
autre moyen d'existence que Part lui-meme, sera force 
de passer par les sentiers de la Boheme." If Chelsea 
were here to make a triumphant interruption, it would 
have spoken too soon, for he proceeds to give the 
definition which serves as an epigraph to this chapter, 
and, without a word of warning, contradicts what he has 
said before in the sentence : " Nous ajouterons que 
la Boheme n'existe et n'est possible qu'a Paris." This 
is a highly serious matter. It leaves old Homer nothing 
but a Greek poet, and Chelsea — well — little more than 
Chelsea. However, I cannot imagine Homer objecting, 
and Chelsea must forgive me, if I accept Murger's state- 
ment in the strictest possible way. Further, the Paris 
implied is the Paris of Murger's own day. That this 
was so may appear more clearly in the sequel, but for 
the present it must suffice to say that the Paris of the 
Romantic period, which gave birth to Bohemia, was 
unlike the Paris of earlier days in many respects, and 
no Romantic had any conception of the cosmopolitan 
Paris of to-day. La vie de Boheme, far from being a 
vague label, was a phrase packed with intimate meaning, 
meaning which at the time was not at all so fully manifest 

12 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 



as under criticism and comparison it may now appear. 
It depended for its peculiar qualities upon the social 
and material conditions of Louis Philippe's Paris, which 
have long since passed away. 

We go, therefore, beyond Murger and strike out 
Villon, Gringoire, and Marot from the roll of Bohemia. 
At most they were only potentially enrolled and lived, 
like Socrates, in a state of unconscious grace. Whether 
or no Bohemia can be said to exist to-day or to have 
existed in the Middle Ages, at least it can only be by 
analogy from the very definite and localized Boheme 
which was part of Paris between 1830 and 1848. 
Though Louis Philippe, the bourgeois king, the admirer 
of the juste milieu, was her ruler, the life of Paris never 
beat with a quicker pulse than in those days ; never 
was she more gay, more witty, more intellectually scin- 
tillating, more paradoxical, in fact more absolutely 
Parisian than when Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, Alfred 
de Musset, the Princess Belgiojoso, Theophile Gautier, 
Gerard de Nerval, Nestor Roqueplan, and Baudelaire 
were among her citizens, when Roger de Beauvoir was 
dazzling upon a truly brilliant boulevard, when the 
dandies gracefully lounged and quizzed upon the steps 
of Tortoni's, when Alexandre Dumas gave his famous 
fancy-dress ball which drew all Paris, when Marie 
Borval shone beside Mademoiselle Mars, when Fanny 
Elssler and Taglioni danced while Duprez and Grisi and 
Ptubini sang, when Gavarni and Daumier drew their 

13 



VIE DE BOHEME 



caricatures, when Musard conducted his furious quad- 
rilles, when there were still salons in which men and 
women still knew how to talk, when life was still an 
artistic achievement in an artistic setting. Memoirs 
and reminiscences abound of this enchanted city in the 
time when her intense inner light had not paled before 
the glare of commercialism and cosmopolitanism, but 
such sketches and side-views must yield to the all- 
comprehending picture contained in the works of 
Balzac, that magnificent magician. Through him the 
Paris of Louis Philippe shines doubly brilliant, for its 
world of flesh and blood was not more wonderful than 
the fictitious world with which he peopled it, a world 
of high and low, rich and poor, squalor and splendour, 
vice and virtue, wit and stupidity— miraculous issue 
from one poor mortal brain. The Princesse de Cadignan, 
Madame D'Espard, Madame Firmiani, and Mademoiselle 
des Touches were its higher, Coralie, Esther, Jenny 
Cadine, Florine, and Madame Schontz its lower, divinities, 
and their worshippers were de Marsay, the engaging 
Lucien de Rubempre, the remarkable Rastignac, 
Maxime de Trailles, La Palferine, and all the corrupted 
crew of Crevels, Malifats, and Camusots ; in it the 
greasy, dirty Maison Vauquer contrasted with the 
splendid boudoir of a Delphine de Nucingen, the 
illuminated poverty of a D'Arthez with the vicious 
luxury of the Nathans an4 Finots, the huge coups of a 
Nucingen with the petty usury of a Pere Samanon, 

14 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 

the simplicity of a Cousin Pons with the mahgnity of a 
Cousine Bette. Into this world of feverish movement 
and poignant contrasts fits la Boheme, lighted by its 
double facets of fact and fiction. As the actual 
Bohemians from Petrus Borel and Theophile Gautier 
to Baudelaire and Murger play their part in the world 
of fact, so the fictitious Bohemians from Raphael de 
Valentin and D'Arthez down to Rodolphe, Marcel, and 
Schaunard play theirs in the world of fiction. They 
are all part of that pageant which, though it took 
eighteen years to pass and declined in bravery towards 
its close, may conveniently be called the pageant of 1830. 
To disentangle the Bohemian contingent from its ac- 
companiment of press and bustle is my aim in this 
book, which was suggested, I may frankly say, by some 
meditations on a second reading of Murger 's " Scenes 
de la Vie de Boheme," a work of perennial delight that 
deserves a better acquaintance in England. In spite 
of the vivid light thrown by Murger on the life which 
he is describing, his stories are apt to be misleading 
unless read in the light of certain knowledge — know- 
ledge which he could presume in his contemporaries 
and which it is the aim of this book, with all humility, 
to revive. Murger's little volume, after it has produced 
its first flush of pleasure and amusement, raises many 
disconcerting questions to a thoughtful reader. The 
scene it paints, for instance, is remarkably different 
from the two sides of literary life depicted in Balzac's 

15 



VIE DE BOHEME 



" Illusions Perdues." Neither the brotherhood of the 
Rue des Quatre Vents nor the fast set into which 
Lousteau introduces Lucien are connected by an obvious 
link with Rodolphe and his friends. Then there is the 
question whether Rastignac in his days at the squalid 
Maison Vauquer was in any sense a Bohemian. Or, 
again, it may be asked how far fiction agrees with fact. 
Did Murger himself lead the same kind of life as a 
Schaunard or Marcel, and if he did, was the same to be 
said of other writers and artists, of Theophile Gautier 
or Gerard de Nerval ? How did Bohemia arise, and 
how far was it, as Murger asserts, a necessary stage in 
the artistic life ? These are some of the obvious in- 
quiries to which it has been my part to attempt an 
answer, and I would crave the reader's indulgence if, 
at the outset, I seem to shrink from plunging at once 
into la vie de Boheme. The external details of a way of 
life cannot be seen in a true light if the social conditions 
and, still more, the state of mind of which it was an 
expression are not first made clear. For that reason a 
little " fringe of history " makes its appearance and 
leads to a short consideration of what French writers 
have called le mal romantique. Nevertheless, I have 
tried to keep the main subject always in view, and not 
to be led away into discussing aspects of the Romantic 
period which are not relevant. This is not, I claim 
with all deference, a concoction of all the old legends 
and Romantic love affairs. George Sand, for instance, 

16 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 

and Alfred de Musset only poke their heads in ; Alfred 
de Vigny and Marie Dorval, Sainte-Beuve and Madame 
Hugo play no part. Bohemia alone is our concern, a 
theme which is displayed for what it is worth without 
any distracting embroideries. 

If, then — ^to return to the train of thought with which 
I began — Bohemia turns out to be something definite, 
with a beginning, a development, and an end, some 
negative criteria, at all events, will be supplied by which 
to judge the applicability of the label " Bohemian " 
to any set of conditions existing to-day, and to decide 
whether the disappearance of certain special implica- 
tions and unique circumstances does not drain the 
term of all definite meaning except as applied, in 
retrospect, to the very persons, manners, and ideas 
which it originally described. By analogy from that 
meaning, there is no harm in saying that there have 
always been, and always will be, Bohemian individuals 
with a Bohemian state of mind. Richard Steele was a 
Bohemian ; Lamb, perhaps, was a little too staidly 
settled at the India House, but his friends, George Dyer, 
George Burnett and, above all, Coleridge, were certainly 
Bohemian individuals. They were of that ultra - 
Bohemian type which never grows out of its Bohemian- 
ism, men who remain permanently in what should 
only be a " stage " till they pass the age when, as 
Nestor Roqueplan said, the " bohemien " risks being 
confounded with the " filou." Such men as Coleridge 

17 B 



VIE DE BOHEME 



and Dyer would be called eccentrics even in the true 
Bohemia ; like poor Gerard de Nerval, they were not 
entirely sane, and the Bohemian type had essentially 
perfect sanity. It is for this very reason that la 
Boheme, at its proper time, could exist, and why before 
and after that time it did not exist. Sane young men, 
no matter what their fads, fancies, and enthusiasms may 
be, have no need and no possibility of making to-day 
that particular demonstration which resulted in 
Bohemia. The social forces drive them in other 
directions. It has long been admitted in France that 
Bohemia is dead, and that it has been or ever will be 
revived in England is a delusion resting upon the un- 
intelligent use of a word. Even young Englishmen, as 
we now consider youth, are too old, far too old, to live 
the life of which they flatter themselves they are 
preserving the tradition. The boy who has submitted 
to discipline for over a dozen years, learned to honour 
his neighbour on the cricket and football field and to 
respect society as embodied in the unwritten laws of 
school life — what has he in common with the youth in 
France, a bachelor of letters at eighteen, bursting with 
his own individuality, passionate in pursuit of his own 
ideas, revelling in his new liberty, dreaming, as only 
a Frenchman can dream, of glory and love, who 
could attach no meaning to such a phrase as " play- 
ing the game," wayward, capricious, uproarious, and 
completely unbalanced ? Yet it was such who made 

18 



LA VRAIE BOHEME 



the traditions of la vie de Bolieme. To those who are 
impelled to break away and lead joyous, untrammelled 
young lives of privation and artistic striving all 
sympathy is due, but by masquerading under a tattered 
banner they do not revive its glory nor increase their 
own. Paris once had room for Bohemia, but London 
never. Chelsea and Soho, Highgate and St. John's 
Wood are to-day no more Bohemian, in the true sense 
of the word, than Piccadilly or Grosvenor Square. 
In the lapse of years a few accidental attributes of the 
real Bohemia have come to be regarded as the essentials 
of the false. We are fond of labels and catchwords, 
lightly casting away their implications. So it has come 
to pass that Bohemia — that dirty, hungry, lazy, noisy 
vale of youthful laughter and tears, so enchanting in 
prospect or retrospect, so uncompromising in actuality, 
which many had to pass through and most would have 
avoided — is looked on as the pleasant home of more or 
less artistic natures, that men of stable occupations, 
regular means, and fastidious temperaments may choose 
for a dwelling-place, just as they may choose a garden 
city. 

Well, let them masquerade, yet Bohemia is dead, 
and more honour may be done to its memory by re- 
calling how it walked and lived than by casting lots 
for its old-fashioned garments. Its virtues and its 
faults were balanced as equally as its good and bad 
fortunes, but if it were to be revived, the resurrection 

19 



VIE DE BOHEME 



should begin with that which was its chief glory, the 
intense artistic enthusiasm that was its charter. 
" Nous etions ivres du beau," wrote Theophile Gautier. 
London, indeed, would be the better for the infusion 
of a more Dionysiac spirit into her aesthetic apprecia- 
tions and ideals. But that is not of the times. At 
the end of his charming book, " Les Enfants Perdus du 
Romantisme," M. Henri Lardanchet quotes a speech 
made by the president of some university society to the 
effect that the youth of to-day, preoccupied with 
extremely definite problems, has no longer the poetic 
enthusiasm of the past generation, whereon he is 
moved to exclaim : 

" Ah ! ne vous glorifiez pas de I'avoir chasse, cet 
enthousiasme ! II etait a la fois la rose et la chanson 
au bord de vos vingt ans desoles ; il etait I'opulence 
orgueilleuse de votre age, il etait votre grace, votre 
genie, votre fierte, 6 jeunesse ! — ^toute votre jeunesse . . ." 

Let us take this for the epitaph of La Boheme. 



20 



II 

A FRINGE OF HISTORY: THE 
REVOLUTION OF 1830 

In the first chapter of Murger's " Scenes de la Vie de 
Boh^me," Marcel, the painter, requires his concierge, 
in return for a tip of five francs, to tell him every 
morning the day of the week, the date, the quarter of 
the moon, the state of the weather, and the form of 
government under which they are living. A hasty 
generalization from this episode might conclude that 
the more noteworthy vicissitudes of society, which we 
call history, were of singularly small importance to 
those concerned with Bohemia. The main current of 
events, it would seem, rolled on, leaving the stagnant 
backwater undisturbed, where, in the easy garment of 
" art for art's sake," a few geniuses and many dilettanti 
lolled the day through in unpatriotic apathy. Such a 
conclusion from Murger's picture of Bohemia is, in fact, 
inevitable, but it is a wrong one, and the fault lies only 
with Murger. The French people, at any rate the 
Parisians, are extremely susceptible to the impressions 
of passing events, political, artistic, or social. They are 
more excitable, as we say, than ourselves. We only 
become agitated in response to orders from Fleet Street, 

21 



VIE DE BOHEME 



whereas they are apt to ferment spontaneously, their 
natural liveliness of mind acting as the yeast. It 
is this quality of interest in passing events, fostered 
by their fondness for discussion, which renders their 
criticism so trenchant and their partisanship so ardent. 
So that we can scarcely believe Bohemia, eclectic as it 
was, to have been unmoved or, at least, uninfluenced by 
the objects of contemporary comment or debate. For 
this reason our picture would be seen in a false light 
without some reference to history. Moreover, I have 
been rash enough to impose upon myself the limitation 
of dates, which are dangerous things in themselves, 
always requiring justification. I put the classic period 
of la vie de Boheme between 1830 and 1848, the exact 
period of Louis Philippe's reign. At first sight the 
reign of this bourgeois prince would seem to have little 
enough connexion with the florescence and decadence 
of the very antitype of bourgeoisie, but this is only a 
further reason for not neglecting history. The Revolu- 
tion of 1830 was of the highest importance for France : 
it was the inevitable explosion of dissatisfaction, both 
political and artistic, with the powers that ruled. 
What I wish to make clear is that, whereas before this 
date Bohemia, if it existed, was but an unconsidered 
fringe on the ancient student life of the Quartier Latin, 
after 1830 it not only received a population but became 
a force. For a few years it was an integral part of the 
larger Paris, a considerable element in public opinion 

22 



A FRINGE OF HISTORY 

and, to some extent, in social life, a factor that could 
not be ignored. Disturbance, however, yielded to 
peace, and the interests of the public shifted. The 
living spirit of Bohemia gradually hardened into a dead 
tradition. By 1 848 independence and individual liberty, 
the watchwords of Bohemia, were replaced in the mind 
of citizens by thoughts of social reform which culminated 
in the Republic of 1848. Art, for the time, fell from 
her place of glory, and Bohemia relapsed for ever into 
obscurity. 

The battle of Waterloo seemed to have undone all 
the good of the Revolution of 1789. The Bourbons 
came back to power, with Louis XVIII, a lazy man, 
on the throne, and his brother, the Comte dArtois, 
leading a band of ultra-Royalists behind him. The 
ultra-Royalists, exasperated by the " hundred days," 
were breathing fire and slaughter, full of zeal to destroy 
the liberty and philosophy of the Revolution and to 
replace it with absolutism and priest-rule. Against 
them was arrayed the party of " Independents " with 
Beranger, their poet, and between the two were 
the " doctrinaires " or moderate Royalists. The 
"Ultras," whose violence began by damaging their 
own cause, were put into power by the assassination 
of the Due de Berry in 1820, and Villele was their 
minister. The succession of Charles X only 
strengthened the forces of reaction, till in 1828 Villele 
was defeated and gave place to a Liberal, Martignac. 

23 



VIE DE BOHEME 



But Martignac's party were not strong enough to 
support him long, and in 1829 he was succeeded by 
Polignac and a Royalist ministry. The Liberals now 
prepared for stubborn resistance. Societies were 
formed, with branches throughout the provinces, which 
were joined by all shades of Liberal opinion, and their 
hero was Lafayette. The blindness of Charles X 
precipitated events. Exasperated by the adverse 
result of the elections of 1830, he suspended the con- 
stitution by his famous ordinances on July 26. Paris 
rose at once, and four days later all was over. Louis of 
Orleans was in Paris by the 30th, and took the oath 
as King in August. This is only a bald statement of 
facts, but they are facts that can be seen by the eye 
of imagination. By 1830 Paris M^as a boiling cauldron 
of passionate enthusiasm. Revolution was aflame once 
more. Barricades — the mere word is a trumpet-call 
to Frenchmen — had been erected once more in the 
streets, and once more blood had flowed in their defence. 
Paris for years had smouldered with indignation, and 
now her young men glowed with triumph. The people 
should come to its own again, and they should be its 
champions. The eyes of France were on them, and they 
knew that their comrades in the provinces, intoxicated 
by the songs of Beranger, enraged by the petty vexations 
of Royalist officials, were envying them their opportunity 
and eagerly looking for any chance that would bring 
them to the city that so nobly stood for liberty. 

24 



A FRINGE OF HISTORY 

The Revolution of 1830 was not only political, it 
was also artistic, and the artistic results were really the 
more permanent. This artistic revolution is generally 
known as the Romantic movement, about which so 
much has been written that I need not refer to it at 
length. Just as the Liberal spirit smouldered for many 
years against the Royalist oppression, so the Romantic 
spirit smouldered against the restraints of the dead 
classic tradition of the eighteenth century. The process 
of combustion, beginning as it did with Rousseau, was 
a slow one, and, as it has been said, Romanticism only 
potentially existed, as a movement, before 1820. In 
that year Victor Hugo founded his journal, the Con- 
servateur LitUraire, gathering round him a brilliant 
company of writers. For ten years the movement 
grew in intensity, fostered by the institution of cenacles 
and the only too successful proselytism of Victor Hugo, 
who disdained no recruit whom he could by flattery 
enlist. It is not too much to say that the youth of all 
France was fired by the revolt against classicism in 
poetry and drama. Every schoolboy wrote verses and 
every ardent soul longed to enter the very arena in 
Paris, where the perruques of the Institute were so 
signally defied. Paris became doubly desirable as the 
field on which political and artistic liberty were being 
won. The triumph came in 1830 with the performance of 
** Hernani." That victory of the Romantic army is now a 
commonplace, but in 1830 it was magnificently new, and 

25 



VIE DE BOHEME 



it was, moreover, the public manifestation of la Boheme. 
The effect of this double excitement was overwhelming. 
It literally tore the more intelligent among the young 
men of France from the roots of all their attachments 
and interests. To establish liberty, to revolutionize 
literature, these were their dreams, in comparison with 
which all ordinary professional prospects seemed dreary 
and unworthy. So the year 1830 saw Paris harbouring 
in her garrets a host of enthusiasts, most of them very 
young, burning with ideals and flushed with apparently 
glorious victories. They felt themselves incorporated 
in one great brotherhood of defiance to established 
authority, so that those who mocked their poverty and 
lawlessness in the name " Bohemian " were uncon- 
sciously justified, for a corporate name is the sign of a 
corporate existence. La Boheme in 1830 was not a 
haphazard collection of dilettanti and artistic eccentrics ; 
it was a fellowship inspired by similar enthusiasms and 
bound together by the struggle against similar mis- 
fortunes. 

Misfortunes, indeed, were not slow to come. Society 
is wonderfully quick to repair the breaches in its walls 
made by gallant assaulters, and the heroes who have 
been foremost in the attack find that their bravely made 
passage has closed behind them, and that they are left 
to be broken and starved into submission. So it was 
after 1830. Louis Philippe was at heart a Royalist 
who had little understanding of the Revolution. His 

26 



A FRINGE OF HISTORY 

great achievement was to keep on his throne for eighteen 
years by encouraging the moneyed middle class, thus 
laying the foundation of French industrial prosperity. 
Enrichissez-vous was the order of the day, an order 
ironically unsuitable to the reformers of Bohemia. 
Those among them whose ideals were political rather 
than literary became uncompromising Republicans, 
formed secret societies, carried on a violent Press 
campaign of articles and caricatures against Louis 
Philippe and his ministers, and plotted further armed 
risings in Paris, the most serious of which was the ill- 
fated insurrection of the Cloitre Saint-Merri in 1832. 
They were to find that they had presumed too far upon 
their strength. In spite of the Legitimist risings in La 
Vendee, labour troubles at Lyons, and disaffection in 
Paris, Louis Philippe's government was powerful 
enough to meet all emergencies. Press laws were 
made doubly stringent, secret societies were prohibited, 
caricatures were exposed to a censorship, and the police 
was exceedingly vigilant. Above all, the bourgeoisie 
held firm. They were tasting prosperity and power, 
and had no desire to let political disturbance interfere 
with their enjoyment. Happy were those who could 
repent of youthful political excesses and return to com- 
fortable homes and settled careers. Those who had no 
refuge but Bohemia came to know the chill of disap- 
pointment and repression. Their bright dreams faded 
away into grey reality ; they found themselves suspects 

27 



VIE DE BOHEME 



and outcasts, with the problem of subsistence, instead of 
being miraculously solved, only rendered more acute. 
They had no outlet for their energies, and those whom 
neither the barricades nor the cholera of 1832 carried 
off saw the fellowship of assault followed by the isolation 
of retreat. They drifted away in little bands to join 
the societies of social reformers like Saint Simon, 
Fourier, or Pere Enfantin. Consumption, starvation, and 
suicide were the ends of many of them, and their traces 
gradually faded from Bohemia, which became iden- 
tified piu-ely with the lives of its literary and artistic 
inhabitants. 

The poets and artists of Bohemia survived longer, 
not only as individuals, but as a united brotherhood, 
mainly because artistic rebellion cannot be put down, as 
it does not manifest itself, by force, and also because the 
campaign in which "Hernani " was the central engage- 
ment really culminated in a lasting victory. For some 
years after 1830 there was plenty for the young band to 
do in reducing block-houses and chasing the persistent 
critics of the old school, who conducted a most robust 
guerilla warfare. Yet hardship and misfortune dogged 
their footsteps also. The Romantic victory of 1830 
was won by an army ; its spoils were shared by the few 
leaders — Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, de Vigny — who, as 
M. Henri Lardanchet has rather unkindly said,* " with- 
out a word of farewell or a motion of gratitude abandoned 
* " Les Enfants Perdus de Romantisme." 
28 



A FRINGE OF HISTORY 

their army to famine." To tell the truth, many of the 
devoted enthusiasts were young men of mediocre talents 
at a day when the standard was very high. Verses 
were a drug in the market, and he was a lucky man who 
could earn a few francs by filling a column or two in a 
little fashion paper boasting a few hundred subscribers. 
Journalism was not yet a commercially flourishing busi- 
ness, expenses were high, subscribers few, and Press 
laws menacing. The starveling poets and dramatists 
of Bohemia fell upon lean years, in which the weaker 
and more utterly destitute were destroyed by their 
privations, like Elisa Mercoeur and Hegesippe Moreau. 
Nevertheless, the Romantics were not crushed out of 
existence. The stout hearts of those who held out still 
beat to a common measure, and maintained artistic 
fellowship in an ideal as an essential element of la vie 
de Boheme. 

Bohemia was glorious for a few years after 1830 as 
it has never been since because it proclaimed a creed, 
the creed of Romanticism. It was glorious then because, 
with Romanticism, Bohemia was a living force. Given 
this connexion, there was some point in the bravado, 
the extravagances and conceits of Bohemian life. 
They were an irregular army, those young men, and 
they rejoiced in their irregularity. Epater le bourgeois 
was a legitimate war-cry when the bourgeois stood for all 
that was reactionary in art. To scare the grocer with 
a slouch hat and a medieval oath was not only a youthful 

29 



VIE DE BOHEME 



ebullition, it was a symbolic act. The sombrero defied 
artistic convention as typified in the top hat ; the 
medieval oath, in its contrast with the paler expletives 
of modernity, symbolized the return to life and colour 
in art after a century of grey abstraction. It was with 
the decline of Romanticism that Bohemia lost its living 
spirit. Unlike Republicanism, that gathered unseen 
strength in failure to blossom for a more worthy genera- 
tion. Romanticism lost its vitality through its very 
success. It may be likened to some conflux of waters 
which to force from its way the inert mass of an obstacle 
rises to a mighty head : the obstacle is swept away, 
and the seething waters resolve themselves into a 
workaday river humbly serving the sea. So the 
Romantic movement has served literature for many 
decades now, and it was quietly flowing between the 
banks before Louis Philippe lost his throne. Success, it 
might be said, came to it too soon, especially as success 
in that day meant money. The dangers of Repub- 
licanism were staved off for the moment by force ; the 
dangers of Romanticism were for ever discounted by 
payment. Authorship was made to serve a com- 
mercial end, and all was over. In 1836 Emile de 
Girardin founded La Presse, which was sold at a far 
lower price than any other paper. The inevitable 
followed. Circulation went up by leaps and bounds, 
contributors were paid respectable prices, expenses 
were defrayed by the profits of advertisement, and 

80 



A FRINGE OF HISTORY 



journalism in France was at once on a commercial 
footing, for other papers were not slow to follow. 
Literature, from being purely an art, quickly became a 
trade. The struggle for a new artistic ideal gave way 
to the struggle for loaves and fishes, which is con- 
temporary with mankind. A man's artistic creed went 
for nothing, when all the public asked was that he 
should make himself conspicuous before they gave him 
their countenance. Once artistic success became a 
matter of royalties it was an easy prey to bourgeois 
conditions, which were that art and literature should 
either be merely entertaining or point a respectable 
moral. Only a few Romantics were proof against this 
insidious influence. To those recalcitrants we owe the 
motto " Art for art's sake." 

The effect of this change upon Bohemia is not difficult 
to imagine. La vie de Boheme impHes youth, so that 
its generations change as rapidly as those of a uni- 
versity. The generation of 1830 had either disap- 
peared or become famous — that is, potentially rich — 
in a few years. The struggle which had convulsed all 
Paris was a thing of the past, and Romanticism was 
so far accepted, swallowed, and digested that by 1843 
the necessity was felt for reverting to the classical 
tradition again, for a change, with the so-called ^cole de 
hon sens. There was no longer any trumpet-call to 
which Bohemia could respond as a brotherhood, as 
Victor Hugo learned when, on wishing to enlist a fresh 

31 



VIE DE BOHEME 



army to go into battle for "Les Burgraves," he was 
told " il n'y a plus de jeunes gens." The swaggering 
heroes of 1830 were now writers of successful novels 
and comedies, or safely chained, as critics, to the careers 
of remunerative journals. Rebellion was impossible, 
for there was nothing to rebel against. Success de- 
pended more upon individual enterprise than common 
enthusiasm. There was nothing left, therefore, for the 
new generations of Bohemia but to fall back upon 
tradition. If there was no more certainty in ideals 
there was at least something definite in slouch hats 
and medieval oaths, in defying conventions of dress and 
accepted table manners. So the symbols of Romanticism 
became the realities of Bohemia after all that they 
symbolized was as lifeless as a cancelled bank-note. 
Further, the population of Bohemia lost that great 
asset in life, personal pride. Their predecessors of 1830 
were arrogant, no doubt, but with the arrogance of an 
advance-guard in a desperate venture. There was no 
desperate venture now toward, and advance meant, not 
progress, but prosperity. The poorer brethren of art 
who peopled Bohemia were now, inasmuch as they 
were not prosperous, failures. They had no sense of 
intellectual achievement to keep up their courage, 
when such achievement was measured in gold. It was 
inevitable that their moral should be affected ; the 
recklessness, which was formerly that of bravado, 
became that of despair, and a less reputable atmosphere 

32 



A FRINGE OF HISTORY 

grew up round Bohemia which has never been dispelled 
from its tradition. 

Nevertheless, dead as the spirit was, the tradition of 
1830 remained very strong, being kept alive not only 
by oral transmission, as all traditions are, but also by the 
art of the sturdy few who remained faithful to the uncom- 
promising standard of disinterestedness in art which it 
implied. Gautier, Flaubert, Baudelaire, the de Gon- 
courts, and a few others stood out unflinchingly against 
commercialism on the one hand and prosy doctrinairism 
on the other. Their struggle was not wholly effectual, 
but, so far as Bohemia is concerned, was important. 
After 1848, when everything had to have a social 
" purpose " and art for its own sake seemed dead, 
they sat down, like the Psalmist, by the rivers of 
Babylon and remembered Zion. From their regrets 
the legend of la sainte Boheme arose idealized and 
purified, and it was made immortal in pages of prose 
by Gautier and in de Banville's " Ballade de ses regrets 
pour I'an 1830." This legend, tinged as it already 
was with sentiment, spread to the public, by 
whom it was resentimentalized, a fact of which 
other authors, Murger included, were not slow to take 
advantage. 

" lis savaient tirer parti des ressemblances r^elles 
entre la vie de Boheme et la vie de I'^tudiant bourgeois 
au ' Pays latin ' pour 6tablir une confusion avantageuse, 
confusion qui est d6ja manifeste dans les * Scenes de 

33 C 



VIE DE BO HE ME 



la Vie de Boheme.' Chanter ainsi la Boheme e'etait un 
peu chanter la jeunesse bourgeoise." * 

If this be true, then Bohemia after 1848, when the 
public interest was purely absorbed in Socialistic 
reforms, lapsed once more into being a mere fringe on 
the student life, and, as such, equally negligible. Its 
classic days were over, never to return, for the society 
of Paris grew too large to be again convulsed by a 
purely artistic conflict. The leaders of the new 
Parnasse made a considerable sensation, but they 
founded, not a new Bohemia, but only another cenacle. 
History establishes the florescence and decline of the 
classic vie de Boheme beyond much doubt, for it went 
with the florescence and decline of a common spirit. 

* A. Cassagne : "La Theorie de Fart pour I'art en France chez 
les derniers romantiques et les premiers r6alistes." 



Ill 

LE MAL DU SIECLE 

I HAVE identified the classic period of Bohemia with 
the time of the Romantic victory. It was not then 
hghted by dim lanterns hung outside the door of 
every artistic idiosyncrasy, but reflected flamboyantly 
a general state of mind. I disclaim once for all the 
intention of adding another to the many studies of 
the Romantic movement, but in my aim of explaining 
the living reality out of which grew the tradition of la 
vie de Boheme 1 am compelled to dwell upon the turgid 
mental content of the early nineteenth century. The 
eccentricities of Bohemia were then but slight exaggera- 
tions of a universal spiritual ferment, though, after 
the good wine was made, a later and decadent Bohemia 
artificially reproduced the symptoms of a process that 
was formerly natural and necessary. Le mal romantique, 
le mal du siecle, are common phrases upon the lips of 
French critics, who to-day affect to treat with con- 
tempt what was, after all, a new Renaissance. Without 
adopting their attitude, it must be admitted that, 
inestimable as were its results, it was an alarming 
convulsion. The English took it in a milder and earlier 
form. Its most extreme manifestation, Byron and the 

35 



VIE DE BOHEME 



" Satanic " school, was a thing of the past before 1830. 
But the French were thoroughly and virulently affected, 
and exhibited all the most violent symptoms. 

We may best begin, perhaps, by looking at a par- 
ticular " subject," to use a medical phrase, in the 
correspondence of J. -J. Ampere, son of the great 
scientist. The younger Ampere, after a violent adora- 
tion of Madame Recamier, who was old enough to be 
his mother, settled down into a most respectable and 
successful man of letters, and he was never in any sense 
a Bohemian. He was a well-educated and perfectly 
normal man, so that the ravages of le mal du siecle may 
be well judged when he writes to his friend, Jules 
Bastide, in 1820 : 

" My dear Jules, last week the feeling of malediction 
was upon me, round me, within me. I owe this to 
Lord Byron ; I read through twice at a sitting the 
English ' Manfred.' Never, never in my life has 
anything I have read overwhelmed me as that did ; 
it has made me ill. On Sunday I went to see the sunset 
upon the Place de I'Esplanade ; it was as threatening 
as the fires of hell. I went into the church, where the 
faithful were peacefully chanting the Hallelujah of the 
Resurrection. Leaning against a column, I looked at 
them with disdain and envy." 

Two months later Jules Bastide delivered his soul in 
a similar strain : 

" I feel that the slightest emotions might send me 
mad or kill me. The evening of our parting I opened 

36 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

at random a volume of Madame de Stael and read the 
dream of Jean Paul. When I came to that terrible line, 
'Christ, nous n'avons point de pere,' a shudder seized 
me. An hour later I had a fever ; it lasted a fortnight." 

Another friend wrote to Ampere in 1824 : 

" All my ideas turn towards Africa. ... Is it 
solitude that I seek in Africa ? Yes, but it is not only 
that ; it is the desert, the palm-tree, the musk-rose, 
the Arab ! A romanesque and barbaresque future is 
what ravishes me." 

In 1825 Ampere, then twenty -five years old, wrote to 
Madame Recamier : 

" Return, for my life is no longer tolerable without 
you ; my spirit is wholly employed in trying to support 
the emptiness of my days." 

In these delirious passages are contained the most 
marked symptoms of the time, the satanic gloom that 
drew its inspiration from Byron, the nervous sensibility 
imitated from the heroes of Madame de Stael, Chateau- 
briand, and Senancour, and the longing for a life of 
Oriental colour which found a later expression in Victor 
Hugo's poems. However, it would be unfair to put 
down this spiritual bouleversement to the influence of 
"Rene," " Obermann," " Werther's Leiden," or 
" Manfred." They became, indeed, the breviaries of 
the afflicted, but the cause of the affliction lay deeper 
in the reaction of the French nation after the Napoleonic 
wars. Napoleon's victorious campaigns drained France 

37 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of its best blood and its best energies, leaving an in- 
heritance of anaemia and neurasthenia to the next 
generation, without diminishing that feverish desire 
for glory, that determination to work one's will upon a 
passive world, which was the spirit of Napoleon's 
armies. Older and more settled people were content 
to reap the rewards of peace, but the young men, 
exalted by the exploits of their fathers, looked in vain 
for some channel in which to discharge their super- 
fluous electricity. Under the restored Bourbons there 
was none. The fathers had had free play upon historic 
battlefields, the sons were cribbed and confined in the 
narrow bounds of everyday life. Moreover, the re- 
volutionary wars had revealed vast, unexplored pastures 
to the French mind. New countries, languages, and 
literatures were brought into its view. The gorgeous 
East, in particular, seized upon the French imagination. 
The desert was vast and untrodden, the Arab was 
dignified and free, and under unclouded skies the 
primitive nobility of mankind revealed itself in splendour 
and space. 

Here, then, is the root of le mat du siecle from which 
the divers symptoms sprang. Of these, perhaps, the 
most marked and most general was an exaggerated 
sensibility, a kind of melancholy madness. Young 
Henri Dubois, who at any other epoch would have 
been content to learn his trade behind the counter of 
Dubois and Dupont, cloth merchants, and to settle 

38 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

down into a peaceful home with Mademoiselle Dupont, 
now plied the yard measure with disgust and yearned 
for an existence more worthy of his " complicated state 
of mind." He was a perfect magazine of pent-up 
emotions, ready to expire in a delirium of joy or an 
ecstasy of despair after the manner of Rene and 
Werther. He was quite willing to love Mademoiselle 
Dupont on the condition that she would lend herself 
to a tempestuous passion, allow her hands to be 
bathed in tears for hours together by her prostrate 
cavalier, receive folios of hysterical ravings by the 
post, and dread the fatal dagger if she had smiled 
from her desk at a customer. She was urged daily to 
fly to a brighter destiny upon distant shores, and 
nightly trembled that the coming morning would find 
Henri transfixed by his own poniard. It was im- 
possible to be reasonable ; only a clod, dead to all 
beauty, could be so brutal. M. Louis Maigron, who in 
his book, " Le Romantisme et les Mceurs," gives some 
very remarkable instances of these aberrations in 
actual correspondence, says very truly : *' Une foule 
de ' crateres ' ont alors superbement fume au nez des 
bourgeois." The Romantic ideal supposed a sensibility 
always stretched to its utmost, des dmes excessives, 
as M. Bourget says,* capable of constant renewal, and 
a consumption of emotional energy which is irrecon- 
cilable with the laws of any organism. If a young 
* " Essais de Psychologie contemporaine," the chapter on Flaubert. 

39 



VIE DE BOHEME 



man failed for a moment to find food for melancholy 
broodings in the shortcomings of society, he could always 
fall back for a good groan upon his own insufficiencies 
of sensibility. Now, of course, the " feelings of male- 
diction " which afflicted the Henri Dubois are of small 
moment in themselves. Time comfortably settled 
them down. It was the young men of real sensibility 
and imagination, the coming poets and artists, in whom 
the ravages of le mal du siecle were more than a passing 
phase. The boundless yearnings that found expression 
in such lines as these : 

Amour, enthousiasme, etude, poesie ! 

Cest Id qu'en voire extase, ocean d'mnhroisie 

Se noiraient nos dmes de feu ! 
Cest Id que je saurais, fort d'un genie etrange, 
Dans la crSation d'un honheur sans melange 

Eire plus artiste que Dieu * — 

could not but lead to a profound dissatisfaction with 
existence, which Maxime du Camp in his reminiscences 
very happily describes : 

" It was not only a fashion [he says], as might be 
believed ; it was a kind of general prostration which 
made our hearts sad, darkened our thoughts, and caused 
us to see a deliverance in the glimpse of death. You 

* Philoth6e O'Neddy : " Feu et Flamme." 
40 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

would have thought that Hfe held in chains souls that 
had caught sight of something superior to terrestrial 
existence. We did not aspire to the felicities of 
paradise : we dreamed of taking possession of the 
infinite, and we were tortured by a vague pantheism of 
which the formula was never found. . . . The artistic 
and literary generation which preceded me and that to 
which I belonged had a youth of lamentable sadness, 
sadness without cause and without object, abstract 
sadness, inherent in the individual or in the period. . . . 

" Nobody was allowed to be without an dme in- 
comprise ; it was the custom and we conformed to it. 
We were ' fatal ' and ' accursed ' ; without even having 
tasted life, we tumbled to the bottom of the abyss 
of disillusionment. Children of eighteen years, re- 
peating phrases gathered from some novel or other, 
would say : ' J'ai le coeur use comme I'escalier d'une 
fille de joie,' and one of Petrus Borel's heroes went to 
the executioner to say to him : ' I should like you to 
guillotine me ! ' This did not prevent us from laughing, 
singing, or committing the honest follies of youth ; 
that was also a way of being desperate ; we imagined 
that we had a satanic laugh, while we really possessed 
the fair joy of spring." 

These exquisite sensibilities, when they were not 
turned back upon themselves in black despair, roamed 
far and wide in search of new sensations upon which 
to exercise themselves. This exotisme, as the French 
have called it, is another of the most marked symptoms 
of Romanticism. The time was ripe for its satisfaction. 

41 



VIE DE BOHEME 



The French mind, shut for so long in the formaHsm 
of the eighteenth century, now found that there were 
innumerable new ways to rever la reve de la vie. The 
men of learning who followed in Napoleon's wake 
renewed the interest in archaeology by their discoveries ; 
the historical novels of Scott and the history of Michelet 
revealed the full and generous life of earlier ages ; the 
forged poems of Ossian caused a perfect rage for Celtic 
mysticism ; and the bold lawless life of the East, with 
its tyrannous Ali Pashas and its Greek patriots, shone 
out with a new splendour. An unsatisfied longing for 
another age and another clime animated every young 
breast. Societies even were formed in provincial towns 
in which subscriptions were pooled, and the winner of 
the lucky number drew the money to take a voyage 
in Italy. The glories of Greece and the grandeurs of 
Rome, as savouring of the classical, appealed only to a 
few ; other eclectics fed upon German mysticism and 
the fantastic weirdness of Hoffmann's supernatural 
tales. A far greater number became Celts in imagina- 
tion ; dressed in the dignity of outlawry and the garb 
of an Irish bard or a Scotch chieftain, they defied the 
haughty English. Maxime du Camp, for instance, wrote a 
poem in his school-days called " Wistibrock I'lrlandais." 
"When I am depressed," he says in his reminiscences, 
" I read it again, and there is no vexation that resists 
it." Anybody who wishes to gain some idea of the 
genre frinitique, as Nodier called it, in its Celtic dress 

42 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

will derive considerable entertainment from Petrus 
Borel's " Madame Putiphar." It is full of mm-ders and 
intrigues and tirades which foam at the mouth. The 
hero, Patrick FitzWhyte, falls in love with Deborah 
Cockermouth, daughter of Lord and Lady Cockermouth, 
the opening dialogue of whom upon the battlements 
is magnificent. My lord, who is described as " one of 
those gigantic fungous and spongy zoophytes indigenous 
to Great Britain," permits himself to address my lady 
as " Saint-hearted milk soup ! " After a good deal of 
clandestine philandering and interminable translations 
of imaginary Irish ballads the young couple elope to 
Paris, where Madame Putiphar (Madame de Pompa- 
dour) seduces the heroine, and the hero after a series 
of dreadful adventures is imprisoned in a loathsome 
dungeon in the Bastille, the taking of which by the 
people of Paris is described with quite astonishing 
force. 

Wild adventures, horrors and tragedies in any age 
were fondly dwelt upon in comparison with the in- 
supportable monotony of contemporary life ; but the 
Middle Ages made a stronger appeal than any. There 
was a perfect mania for medievalism. Nothing pleased 
overwrought imaginations more than to picture exist- 
ence amid all the riot and magnificence of those more 
spacious days. How they would have rattled a sword 
and clanked a spur, how defiantly tilted their plume, 
how breathlessly loved and how destructively fought ! 

43 



VIE DE BOHEME 

Why did they not Hve in the joyous time when every 
minute brought an adventure instead of spilHng one 
more drop from the cup of ennui, and when a man shaped 
his own ends according to his passions, throwing a curse 
to the poor and a madrigal to the fair ? Then, all their 
life was not grey. Splendour of colour with ample 
grace of form decked out existence like a picture by 
Veronese. Costly satin vied with magnificent brocade ; 
all was a riot of velvet and purple dyes, fur and old 
lace ; drinking cups, worthy of giants, chiselled by a 
Cellini, offered wine worthy of the gods ; swords were 
masterpieces of the finest Toledo ; jewelled harness 
caparisoned fleet Arab horses ; feasts were Gargantuan, 
jests more than Rabelaisian ; and all this wonderful 
wealth of glittering colour was thrown into magnificent 
relief against the solemnity of antique battlements 
and the sombre shadows of Gothic architecture. This, 
apart from all innovations of dramatic form, was the 
secret of the delirious popularity of "Hernani," 
" Lucrece Borgia," " Le Roi s 'amuse," and the " Tour 
de Nesle," and of the craze for historical novels, verses 
in baroque metres, slouch hats a la Buridan, velvet 
pourpoints, daggers, mysterious draperies and massive 
chests, drinking cups made out of skulls, and illuminated 
breviaries of which Gautier makes such fun in " Les 
Jeune France." To it we owe Balzac's splendid 
" Contes Drolatiques," Lassailly's " Roueries de 
Trialph," and Roger de Beauvoir's " L'Ecolier de 




The Spirit of Romanticism 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

Cluny." Gautier in his early poems was as romanesque 
as any of his " Jeune France," as those who know 
his early poems must admit. " Debauche " is a frank 
orgy, and " Albertus " is a gem of the Gothic, with its 
supernatural setting, the " fatality " of its hero, the 
horror of its denouement, the wild fantasy of its witches' 
chamber, and its amorous wealth of descriptive detail 
in which old fabrics, old furniture, swords, daggers, and 
hangings abound. Victor Hugo, above all, was the 
chosen bard of the Gothic and the romanesque. Besides 
his dramas, his " Odes et Ballades " were in the mouth 
of every child who could pay four halfpence for an 
hour's luxury in the cabinet de lecture ; and schoolboys 
would declaim for hours in antiphon such passages as 
the invocation of "La Bande Noire " : 

murs ! 6 creneaux ! 6 tourelles ! 
Remparts ! fosses aux ponts mouvants ! 
Lourds faisceaux de colonnes freles ! 
Fiers chateaux ! modestes couvents ! 
Cloitres poudreux, salles antiques, 
Oil gemissaient les saints cantiques, 
Ou riaient les rires joyeux ! 
Eglises oil priaient nos meres. 
Tours oil combattaient nos aieux ! 

or the frenzied descriptions of the witches' dance in 
"La Ronde du Sabbat," or lines from "La Chasse 

45 



VIE DE BOHEME 



du Burgrave " — which even Hugo called " un peu trop 
Gothique de forme " — or with a 

Cd, qu'on selle, 
Ecuyer, 
Mon fidele 
Destrier. 
Mon coeur ploie 
Sous lajoie 
Quandje broie 
Vetrier 

proclaimed their attendance at the " Pas d'Armes du 
Roi Jean." 

The star of the Gothic and the medieval was indeed 
high in the heavens, but it paled before the full sun of 
Araby and the East. Napoleon had dreamed of a 
Mohammedan empire, and before his dream could fade 
Navarino and Missolonghi fired men's minds again. 
Victor Hugo was also the champion of Oriental 
rhapsody. Even in 1824 he had seen the possibilities 
of Oriental colour in French verse, when he wrote " La 
Fee et la Peri," a poem in which the Peri, who stands 
for romanticism, says : 

J'a^ de vastes citis qu'en tous lieux on admire, 
Lahore aux champs fleuris, Golconde, Cachemire, 
La guerriere Damas, la royale Ispahan, 
Bagdad que ses remparts couvrent comme une armure, 

46 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 



Alep doni V immense murmur e 
Semhle au patre lointain le bruit d'un ocean. 

His collection of poems entitled " Les Orientales " was 
published in 1829 and took Paris by storm, provoking 
passionate enthusiasm and equally passionate protest. 
In the preface he asserts that Orientalism is a general 
preoccupation. " The colours of the East have come, 
as if spontaneously, to impress themselves upon all his 
[the poet's] thoughts and all his musings ; his musings 
and his thoughts have become, in turn, and almost 
without his willing it, Hebrew, Turkish, Greek, Persian, 
Arabic, even Spanish, for Spain, too, is the East." 
There are fine poems in " Les Orientales " — " Les 
Djinns," for instance, will always be famous — but it is 
impossible to read the volume through to-day without 
considerable amusement, so very full-blooded are they. 
There are lofty apostrophes to Byron and the Greeks, 
followed by dreadful tales of Turkish cruelty, 
gruesome ballads like "La Voile," in which four 
brothers kill their sister, epigraphs like " O horror ! 
horror ! horror ! " valiant Klephtes, houris, scimitars, 
and all the catalogue which the poet himself 
gives in " Novembre " : 

Sultans et sultanes, 
Pyramides, palmiers, galeres capitanes, 
Et le tigre vorace et le chameau frugal ; 

47 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Djinns au vol furieux, danses des bayaderes, 
VArabe qui se penche au cou des dromadaires, 
Et la fauve girafe au galop inegale. 
Alors elephants hlancs charges defemmes brunes, 
Cites aux domes d'or ou les mois sont des lunes, 
Imams de Mahomet, mages, pretres de Bel . . . 

Then, as if Victor Hugo did not whip the passions 
enough, Alfred de Musset lent a hand in the hurly-burly 
with his " Contes d'Espagne et d'ltalie," which made 
the young maniacs frantically demand : 

Avez-vous vu dans Barcelone 
line Andalouse au sein bruni ? 
Pale comme un beau soir d'automne ! 
Cest ma mattresse, ma lionne ! 
La marquesa d'Amaegtii, 

Delacroix, too, was sending the critics into ecstasies 
of rage with his vivid Eastern scenes and the horrors 
of his " Massacre of Scio." The ideas of the young 
men with inflamed sensibilities seethed in turbulent 
disorder. To be in the movement they had to have 
at least a poniard and a narghile, a medieval cloak and 
an Oriental divan. Those with money to spare decorated 
their rooms like sombre Gothic manors, those with 
no money enriched their conversations with a wealth 
of medieval diction. No make-believe was too ridi- 
culous to shut out the actual place and time in which 

48 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 



they lived. Balzac's novel " La Peau de Chagrin," 
which has won a celebrity far beyond its merits, is most 
unmistakably marked with the frenzies of 1830. His 
revelling in the supernatural, the massed effects of care- 
ful detail in the description of the curiosity shop where 
the wild-ass skin hangs, the wild riot of the orgy, the 
terrific excesses in which Valentin ruins his life, the 
duel and the horrible end, are just as much the genre 
frenetique as anything by Petrus Borel. The hero, 
Valentin, is simply a type of his time, and his tirade 
on taking the supernatural skin is hardly an exaggera- 
tion : 

" Je veux que la debauche en delire et rugissante 
nous emporte, dans son char a quatre chevaux, par 
dela les bornes du monde, pour nous verser sur des 
plages inconnues ! Que les ames montent dans les 
cieux ou se plongent dans la boue, je ne sais si alors 
elles s'elevent ou s'abaissent, peu m'importe ! Done, 
je commande a ce pouvoir sinistre de me fondre toutes 
les joies dans une joie. Oui, j'ai besoin d'embrasser 
les plaisirs du ciel et de la terre dans une derniere 
etreinte, pour en mourir. Aussi souhaite-je et des 
priapees antiques apres boire, et des chants a reveiller 
les morts, et de triples baisers, des baisers sans fin dont 
la clameur passe sur Paris comme un craquement 
d'incendie, y reveille les epoux et les inspire une ardeur 
cuisante qui les rajeunissent tous, meme les septua- 
genaires ! " 

As for the " orgy," it was so much a fashion that 

49 D 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Gautier in his " Les Jeune France " scores a delightful 
hit with the story of a society of young men who 
combine for a colossal feast, in which various sections 
follow out in exact detail the descriptions of orgies 
given by their favourite novelists and the end is a 
farcical confusion. 

Building castles in Spain is a fascinating pastime, 
but the ingenuities of imagination cannot entirely shut 
out the individual from his sm'roundings. From 1820 
to 1830 the young man of France was continually 
running against the sharp corners of the world and 
receiving the elbow prods of his fellow-men. Exalted 
by his excited sensibility, he conceived at once a con- 
tempt and a hatred for the insensibility of society, 
which produced in him a feeling of moral superiority 
and solitude. This abnormal vanity, shown in the 
deification of " I'homme superieur " and a proud 
contemplation of his social outlawry, is a third marked 
symptom of le mal du siecle.* It broke out in several 
different forms. One was a romantic worship of energy 
and strong will, as typified by the career of Napoleon. 
Given these qualities, a man could rise from the lowest 
depths to impose his wishes on the world. However, 
self-styled supermen have invariably found their 
theories rebellious to practical application, and Henri 
Dubois, if he started upon a Napoleonic path, soon 

* See Rene Canat : " Du Sentiment de la Solitude morale chez les 
romantiques et les parnassiens." 

50 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

discovered that society selects its " homme superieur " 
when it wants him, and that uncalled-for aspirants 
receive the point of its toe. He reserved his superiority, 
therefore, more usually, for less material manifestations 
and conflicts. His rare spirit, susceptible to all " the 
finer shades," stood mournfully but prudently on high, 
scorning the base, unfeeling throng below it, and calling 
out through space for kindred spirits to cherish. " My 
friend, take care of yourself," writes young Ampere 
to his friend. " Obermann cries to us, ' Keep close 
together, ye simple men who feel the beauty of natural 
things.' Let us help one another, all of us who suffer." 
So Henri Dubois and his friends suffered and helped 
one another, shedding pints of tears and being just as 
ridiculous as they could be. 

Solitary suffering makes men philosophers or poets. 
Philosophy requiring some intellectual capacity and 
mental preparation, Henri Dubois often took the further 
step from crying in the wilderness to enshrining his 
laments in metre, being encouraged in this by the 
certain fact that young men and true poets were indeed 
striking the Romantic harp to a new and surprising 
tune. The poet was the real " homme superieur " 
of the time, not only in fancy but in fact. Henri 
accordingly proceeded another stage towards sub- 
limity by way of the faulty syllogism : " The poet 
has an exquisite soul ; I have an exquisite soul ; 
therefore I am a poet." The Romantics conceived 

51 



VIE DE BOHEME 



the poet as a God-sent prophet. This was the 
attitude, above all, of de \igny ; Lamartine and 
Sainte-Beuve adopted it in their early days, and certain 
passages of Victor Hugo — for instance : 

O poeies sacres, echeveles, sublimes, 

Allez, et rdpandez vos dmes sur les cimes, 

Sur les sommets de neige en butte aux aquilons, 

Sur les deserts pieux ou V esprit se recueille, 

Sur les bois que Vautomne emporte feuille dfeuille, 

Sur les lacs endormis dans V ombre des vallons ! 

— show that he was not averse to it. So every youth 
who could rhyme " ame " with " fiamme " put on the 
aureole of a "poete echevele," revelled in the ecstasies 
of solitary contemplation, and sneered magnificently 
at all who attended to business as soulless epiciers. 
This was a harmless enough delusion, but it became 
less harmless when combined with the idea that for 
the sake of experience the poet should abandon himself 
entirely to his passions. The great artist, indeed, has 
his own morality, but Victor Hugo's " Mazeppa " or 
Lamartine's stanza 

Mais nous, pour embraser les dmes, 
Ilfaut bruler, ilfaut ravir 
Au del jaloux ses triples fiammes : 
Four tout peindre, ilfaut tout sentir. 
Foyers brulants de la lumiere, 
52 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 



Nos coeurs de la nature entiere 
Doivent concentrer les rayons, 
Et Von accuse notre vie ! 
Mais ce flambeau qu'on nous envie 
S'allume aufeu des passions 

were dangerous matchboxes in the hands of children. 
It was a fataUty, too, that several poets of some 
merit died during these years of want or neglect. 
Gilbert, the satirist, expired in hospital, breathing 
piteous plaints, and Heg^sippe Moreau, the poet 
of "La Voulzie," was equally unfortunate. Society 
can hardly be blamed for not supporting all its 
lyrically inclined members, but it was natural that 
the " poete echevele " should smoulder with indignation 
at such disasters, and cheer the sentiments of de 
Vigny's drama " Chatterton " till his lungs gave out. 
It was still more of a fatality that certain other poets 
attained a momentary celebrity by committing suicide, 
leaving rhymed farewells to a stony-hearted society and 
a tedious life. To win fame by a pathetic death in a 
pauper's hospital, or to bid defiance to the world with 
a superb gesture of self-destruction, was a far too common 
ambition. Sainte-Beuve himself observed that " la 
manie et la gageure de tous les Rene, de tous les 
Chatterton de notre temps, c'etait d'etre grand poete 
et de mourir." A perfect epidemic of suicide was due 
to le mal du siecle, as M. Louis Maigron shows in his 

53 



VIE DE BOHEME 

work that I have already cited. Among other strange 
stories he gives at length the confession of an old man 
who in his youth was president of a suicide club, 
formed in a provincial town by a set of romantic school- 
boys as late as 1846. Happily the club was short-lived, 
but it resulted in the self-destruction of one of its most 
gifted members. In the letter with which he announced 
his coming death from Lucerne he wrote : 

"... I have no precise reason to have done with 
life except the insurmountable disgust with which 
it inspires me. Chance of birth gave me a certain 
fortune ; I am not denied an intelligence perhaps 
slightly above the common level ; it would have been 
in my power to marry an adorable child : so many 
conditions of happiness, in the eyes of the vulgar. 
But my poor soul, alas, cannot content itself with 
them. Nothing can charm my heart any longer, 
' mon coeur lasse de tout, meme de I'esperance ' ; it 
will be closed, without ever having been opened." 

He left his little library to the club, specially re- 
serving for the president " Werther," " Rene," " Ober- 
mann," " Jacques," and the works of Rabbe. They 
were his breviaries, he said, covered as they were with 
notes that revealed all his soul. 

The pose of pathetic despair was not, however, the 
only one in which the feeling of moral solitude showed 
itself. Another very common attitude was that of 
revolt against society, an aping of Mephistopheles, 

54 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

the fallen angel doomed to everlasting unhappiness, 
strong only in his disillusionment and his clear 
vision of the canker in the heart of every bud. The 
word " Satanism " summed up this attitude : its 
breviaries were " Manfred " and Dumas' violent 
tragedy, " Antony." It rejoiced in the cult of the 
horrible, in Hoffmannesque dabblings in the super- 
natural, in pessimistic poetry like Gautier's " Tete de 
Mort," and such lines in his early sonnets as : 

Mais toute cette joie est comme le lierre 

Qui d'une vieille tour, guirlande irreguliere, 

Embrasse en les cachant les pans demanteles, 

Au dehors on ne voit que riante verdure, 

Au dedans, que poussiere infecte et noire ordure, 

Et qu'ossements jaunis aux decombres meles. 

Its effects, in society, were chiefly obtained by the satanic 
laugh. Gautier soon grew out of his satanic mood, Dumas 
was never anything more than a fine romancer, while 
Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and de Vigny were too lofty 
poets to indulge in such artificialities ; but satanism 
deserves mention because it was a traditional business 
with one party in the romantic Bohemia — the party 
of the Bousingots. 

The origin of the term Bousingot has been a matter 
of dispute among French writers. Philibert Audebrand 
in his memoir of Leon Gozlan says it was invented by 

55 



VIE DE BOHEME 



that brilliant journalist to satirize the young republican 
enthusiasts of 1832 in the Figaro. Charles Asselineau 
in his " Bibliographic Romantique " says that after 
some hilarious souls had been arrested for singing too 
loudly in the streets " Nous avons fait du bousingo " 
— bousingo being the slang for " noise " — it became a 
popular designation for the more furious Romantics. 
The matter seems to be settled more or less in Asse- 
lineau's manner by a passage in the letter written by 
Philothee O'Neddy to Asselineau after the publication 
of the " Bibliographic Romantique " to give a more 
correct account of the second cenacle. He asserts that 
there never were any self-styled Bousingots, but that 
after the arrest of the hilarious revellers the affair got 
into the newspapers and the term remained as a bourgeois 
hit at the Romantics. The proper spelling of the word 
was bouzingo, and Gautier exclaimed one day : " These 
asses of bourgeois don't even know how bouzingo is 
spelt ! To teach them a little orthography several of 
us ought to publish a volume of stories which we will 
bravely call ' Contes du Bouzingo.' " The suggestion was 
thought a happy one, and the book was even advertised 
as imminent, but it was never written. Gautier's promise 
of a contribution was afterwards redeemed in " Le Capi- 
taine Fracasse," but Jules Vabre's famous treatise " Sur 
I'incommodite des commodes " did not progress beyond 
the title. In common parlance, however, the name 
remained Bousingots, and its general meaning was quite 

56 




Bousingots 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

clear. Just as the Gothic frenzy made the party 
of Jeune-France, who were the Christian-Royalist 
section of the Romantics, so the political agitation, 
combined with the feeling of antagonism to society, 
made the Bousingots. The meaning became sub- 
sequently enlarged to express all the extravagances of 
the Romantics, their idealization of the artist and their 
disorderly ways ; but this extension was illegitimate. 
Literature and poetry were, it is true, the preoccupation 
of the more prominent Bousingots, but their distinctive 
mark was a profession of ultra-democratic views and 
manners. The leader of them all was the mysterious 
Petrus Borel,* whom I have already mentioned as the 
author of " Madame Putiphar." His other chief work 
was a volume of poems entitled " Rhapsodies." The 
young men of 1830 worshipped him as the coming 
champion before whom the star of Victor Hugo was 
ingloriously to wane. They were grievously dis- 
appointed. After the first crisis of le mal du siecle 
his inspiration faded away, and he died an obscure 
official in Algeria. Baudelaire, in " LArt Roman- 
tique," says of him : 

" Without Petrus Borel, there would have been a 
lacuna in Romanticism. In the first phase of our 
literary revolution the poet's imagination turned 
especially to the past. . . . Later on its melancholy 
took a more decided, more savage, and more earthy 

* See Chapter VII. 
57 



VIE DE BOHEME 



tone. A misanthropical republicanism allied itself 
with the new school, and Petrus Borel was the most 
extravagant and paradoxical expression of the spirit 
of the Bousingois. . . . This spirit, both literary and 
republican, as opposed to the democratic and bourgeois 
passion which subsequently oppressed us so cruelly, 
was moved both by an aristocratic hate, without limit, 
without restriction, without pity, for kings and the 
bourgeoisie, and by a general sympathy for all that 
in art represented excess in colour and form, for all 
that was at once intense, pessimistic, and Byronic ; it 
was dilettantism of a singular nature, only to be 
explained by the hateful circumstances in which our 
bored and turbulent youth was enclosed. If the 
Restoration had regularly developed in glory. Roman- 
ticism would have never separated from the throne ; 
and this new sect, which professed an equal disdain 
for the moderate party of the political opposition, for 
the painting of Delaroche or the poetry of Delavigne, 
and for the king who presided over the development of 
le jusie-milieu, would have had no reason for existing." 

Charles Asselineau fills up the picture. The Bousingot, 
he says, was as rough and cynical as the J eune-France 
was dandified and exquisite, and showed genius in 
discovering at once the plastique of his idea. In con- 
trast to the extravagant luxury affected by the 
medievalists, he adopted the manners of the people in 
habits and dress, smoking clay pipes and drinking the 
" petit bleu " of low pot-houses. Instead of raving 
about cathedrals, he spent his ingenuity in devising 

58 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

bitter satires against the king and his officers or fresh 
settings in caricature for Louis' famous tete de poire. 
" The fusillade of St. -Merry and the laws of September 
were the Bousingofs Waterloo. From the moment he 
was forbidden to protest in a visible manner, and 
was deprived of his insignia, his waistcoat, his stick, and 
his pipe with a pear-shaped bowl, the Bousingot had 
to retire. He became serious, an economist or a 
humanitarian philosopher, and showed his revolt 
against society and power by writing novels ' in which 
the idea predominated over the form.' The novel with 
a tendency, that literary monstrosity, is the only legacy 
left by the Bousingot to the literature of the nineteenth 
century." * 

In Balzac's wonderful gallery of portraits there is a 
picture of a Bousingot. Raoul Nathan, the author, 
appears frequently in his Parisian scenes, but his out- 
lines are only elaborated in the little-read " Une Fille 
d'Eve." There was something great and fantastic in 
his appearance, as if he had fought with angels or 
demons. He was strongly built, with a pocked face 
and a tanned complexion. His long hair was always 
untidy, but his eyes were Napoleonic and his mouth 
charming. His clothes always looked old and worn, 
his cravat was askew, his long, pointed beard untended. 
The grease from his hair stained his coat-collar, and 
he never used a nail-brush. His movements were 
* Asselineau : " Bibliographie Romantique," 
59 



VIE DE BOHEME 



grotesque, his conversation caustic and full of surprises. 
His talent, great but disorderly, had shown itself in 
three novels and a book of poetry : he was critic, 
dramatist, vaudevillist. Jealous ambition led him to 
embrace politics. Beginning at the extreme of opposi- 
tion, he went from Saint Simonism to republicanism and 
through all the stages to ministerialism, being rewarded 
by a government appointment. 

" Nathan off re un image de la jeunesse litteraire 
d'aujourd'hui, de ses fausses grandeurs et de ses miseres 
reelles ; il la represente avec ses beautes incorrectes et 
ses chutes profondes, sa vie a cascades bouillonnantes, 
a revers soudains, a triomphes inesperes. C'est bien 
I'enfant de ce siecle devore de jalousie . . . qui veut la 
fortune sans le travail, la gloire sans le talent et le 
succes sans peine, mais qu'apr^s bien des rebellions, 
bien des escarmouches, ses vices amenent a emarger le 
budget sous le bon plaisir du Pouvoir." 

Balzac, we all know, was a little too ready to believe 
in the depravity of human nature, particularly when 
men of letters were in question. Moreover, he was 
profoundly antagonistic to the creed of the Bousingots. 
His portrait of Nathan is distinctly ill-natured, but it 
bears out the profound remark of Baudelaire, that if 
the Restoration had developed in glory Romanticism 
would never have separated from it. In another 
extravagant tirade (in "Beatrix") Balzac complains 
that the Revolution of 1830 opened the flood-gates 

60 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 



of petty ambition, and the result of modern 
" equality " was that everybody did his utmost to 
become conspicuous. This complaint was very largely 
true, but as far as the Bousingots are concerned 
Baudelaire puts the facts in a truer light. The policy 
of juste-milieu inevitably caused revolt among the 
over-excited young men of the day. The Bousingots 
were part of this revolt, but the best of them had no 
thought of self -advancement. On the contrary, the 
testimony of contemporaries goes to show that the 
saving virtue of the Romantic Bohemia, Bousingot and 
Jeune-France alike, was disinterestedness. Baudelaire 
says in extenuation of Petrus Borel himself : " He 
loved letters ferociously, and to-day we are encumbered 
with pretty, supple writers ready to sell the muse for 
the potter's field." Asselineau avers that if there was 
much of the ridiculous in their excesses, there was 
nothing sordid. " They never talked of money, or 
business, or position." The artist Jean Gigoux,* in 
regretting the past, says that the rapin of his later 
years, if better dressed, knew less than those of his 
young days, and was greedy of honours and money, 
things which the rapins of old sincerely despised. 
Indeed, it is impossible to read much about the 
Romantics of 1830, high or low, aristocratic or 
Bohemian, without coming to the conclusion that they 
were neither jealous nor mercenary. So the Bousingots 
* " Causeries sur les artistes de mon temps," 
61 



VIE DE BOHEME 



— though some rolled their eyes and knitted their brows 
"as if they would bully the whole universe," others 
" fixed their dark glances on the ground in fearful 
meditation," others, "gloomily leaning against a statue 
or tree," threw " such terrific meaning into their looks 
as might be natm-ally interpreted into the language 
of the witches in ' Macbeth ' " * — did these things in all 
sincerity, with an ambition, not to " get on," but to 
" do something." 

We cannot, then, judge the classic vie de Boheme in a 
true light without taking into account this mal du 
siecle which with its various symptoms infected the 
greater part, certainly the more intelligent part, of 
the younger generation. Many outlived the fever and 
smiled at its remembrance ; but at its height it was 
powerful. It was a healthy fever in so far as it implied 
devotion to an ideal, the ideal of true art, which was 
then born again. Moreover, the ideal consumed in its 
fire many pettinesses of the artistic soul, the com- 
mercialism of some, the haughty vanity of others. 
Balzac's Lucien de Rubempre was not a true son of 1830 
when he sold his independence to corrupt journalism, 
and Victor Hugo was not only intriguing when he 
intoxicated young poets by flattering letters. There 
was a true fellowship of art such as has not existed 
since. The poet or artist whose name was in every- 
one's mouth did not for that reason deny his friendship 
* Mrs. TroUope : " Paris and the Parisians in 1835." 
62 



LE MAL DU SIECLE 

to one who had never pubhshed a Hne or exhibited a 
picture. If a man had talent he was greeted as brother 
by all his fellow-craftsmen, high or low. This common 
brotherhood inspired by one ideal of art suffused and 
welded together Bohemia with a radiant heat. Only 
when the radiance became dim did the mass grow cold 
and crumble in pieces which retained but the semblance 
of a spark. Bohemia, to change the metaphor, was 
not then a block of model dwellings, with nothing in 
common but steel girders and a stone staircase, but it 
was a corporation fed by common hopes and warmed 
at a common hearth. Its more ridiculous defects — its 
vanities and morbid excitability, its violent defiance 
of social convention, its passion for the exotic and the 
vivid, its fits of melancholy and its uproarious rejoicings 
— were not individual vices, but marks of a generation. 
Its grandeur and its follies are traceable to a common 
source. Its greatest fault was not extravagance, for 
that is a venial folly, but ignorance, which even youth 
cannot wholly excuse. The seed of dissolution really 
lurking in Bohemia was what Philibert Audebrand has 
truly called its enfantillage de resprit* In the flush of 
Romanticism the zealots neglected those studies which 
give firmness to the mind. They rejected history and 
philosophy; being young, they were not well read and 
they did not care to become so. Foreign literature was 
a closed book to them, in spite of their professed 
* " Derniers Jours de Boheme." 
63 



VIE DE BOHEME 



admiration for Dante, Goethe, Shakespeare, and Byron ; 
even of their own literature their knowledge was sadly 
defective. "Tout bien vu," says M. Audebrand with 
a shake of the head, " ils n'avaient pas d'autre docteur 
que la Blague." This cap will not fit all the heads, 
but it has an undeniable texture of truth. When the 
first ebullition was over, and the Bohemians of 1830 
had departed from their joyful college to spread its 
doctrines in a workaday world, they left nothing but a 
tradition behind them. Their house had been built 
upon a light soil, and the time had come to make new 
and solid foundations. But the tradition did not in- 
clude such wholesome industry, and Murger's genera- 
tion, denied the excitement and warmth of building, 
were content to sit down in the hasty edifice to enjoy 
only the pastimes of their predecessors, stopping up the 
ever-widening crevices, that let in a cold blast of public 
opinion, with the unsatisfactory makeshift of la blague. 



64 



IV 
PARISIAN SOCIETY— LE TOUT PARIS 

The events of the time, the spiritual exaltation of 
young France, and the eclat of the Romantic struggle 
gave to Bohemia a definite position. This position 
was accentuated by the smallness of Parisian society. 
The diversity and complexity of life in a great 
modern city are such that, even if all other 
obstacles were swept away, this alone would still make 
it impossible for Bohemia to rise again. Bohemians 
must live where rents are low — on the outer cir- 
cumference, that is, of a city. In the larger capitals of 
Europe the inner circle, which contains the commerce 
and luxury, the hurry and bustle, has extended 
enormously in the last fifty years or so. The increase 
of middle-class prosperity has thrown far back the 
alleys and mean houses, to give place to "residential" 
districts ; the easiness of modern travel has brought 
vast hotels and a constant foreign population ; shops 
and theatres fill immeasurably more space. Bohemia 
is driven to the extremities of the spider's web, so that, 
in Plato's phrase, it is no longer one, but many. It 
would be absurd to imagine a solid cohort formed from 
Hampstead, Chelsea, and Camden Town, to say nothing 

65 E 



VIEDE BOH £ ME 



of Wimbledon or Hampton Court, for the purpose of 
forcing some "Hernani" upon the London public (or 
its newspaper critics). Public opinion can hardly be 
corrected when the agents of correction are forced to 
disperse in the last motor omnibus. Moreover, this 
extension of the inner circle has made its inhabitants 
less susceptible to sudden assaults. Unconventional 
demonstrations have upon it no more effect than the 
poke of a finger upon an india-rubber ball. The interests 
of Bohemia, even if this circle be not entirely indifferent 
to them, are only a fraction of its multitudinous pre- 
occupations, which include the fluctuations of the money 
market, the results of athletic contests in all parts 
of the globe, the progress of foreign wars, the crimes 
and railway accidents of the week, the development of 
aviation, and the safest method of crossing the street. 
Bohemia can no longer be pointed to and felt by society 
as part of itself, and when this is the case the name is 
nothing but a metaphor. 

Speaking of the year 1841, Baudelaire in " L'Art 
Romantique " says : 

" Paris was not then what it is to-day, a hurly-burly, 
a Babel inhabited by fools and futilities, with little 
delicacy as to how they kill time. At that time tout 
Paris was composed of that choice body of people who 
were responsible for forming the opinion of the others." 

The glory of Bohemia rests partly on this fact. 
During Louis Philippe's reign this state of society, 

66 




^^:. 



CO 

a, 

o 

m 







^^.-. 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

comparable in some respects with the ideal polity of the 
Attic philosophers, was, it is true, being disrupted from 
within. The balance of power between wealth of gold 
and fecundity of ideas was gradually changing — a 
change of which Balzac is the immortal epic poet. 
Yet, though the power of a Nucingen was increasing, 
and Paris was about to start on its new prosperity as 
the pleasure-ground of Europe, this precious tout Paris 
lasted till the reign was over. Paris was small, in 
extent, in population, in the number of those who 
formed its opinion. Of its actual compactness as a 
city I shall speak in a later chapter ; suffice it now to 
say that the boulevards of Montmartre and Montpar- 
nasse bounded it on the north and south, that the 
Champs Elysees was still a wilderness, and that outside 
the fortifications lay open country. The population 
about 1835 was only 714,000 ; railways were hardly 
beginning, factories only tentatively being erected. 
The working classes were chiefly engaged in commerce 
or petits metiers, and the heights of Menilmontant smiled 
as green and as free from slums as the Champs Elysees 
were free from luxurious hotels. The passing foreign 
population, though there was a certain number of 
English attracted by cheap living, was almost negligible. 
Brazilians and Argentines, Germans and Americans 
were hardly to be seen ; even French provincials 
walked delicately instead of forming, as they do now, 
the chief clientele of the Parisian theatres. Le tout 

67 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Paris was, therefore, a nucleus within a circle of three 
segments — the middle class, the aristocratic families, 
and Bohemia. 

The middle class, though the most numerous, was 
only potentially important at the time. Politics and 
money-making were its only preoccupations. It was 
divided, of course, into an infinity of grades, all of which 
may be illustrated from characters in Balzac's " Comedie 
Humaine." There were the bankers and usurers from 
the Du Tillets down to the Samanons, the successful 
merchants like Birotteau, the world of officials so 
accurately described in " Les Employes," the judges 
like old Popinot, and all the men of law from a Desroches 
down to his youngest clerk. Some were as sordid and 
bourgeois as the Thuilliers, others luxurious de- 
bauchees like the Camusots and Matifats, others, like 
the Rabourdins, fringed upon the heau monde. The 
sons of men enriched and decorated by Napoleon 
formed perhaps the cream of the middle class, and of 
these Balzac has given his opinion in describing Baron 
Hulot's son, who plays so large a part in " Cousine 
Bette " : 

" M. Hulot junior was just the type of young man 
fashioned by the Revolution of 1830, with a mind 
engrossed by politics, respectful towards his hopes, 
suppressing them beneath a false gravity, very envious 
of reputations, uttering phrases instead of incisive 
mots — those diamonds of French conversation — ^but 

68 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

with plenty of attitude and mistaking haughtiness for 
dignity. These people are the walking coffins which 
contain the Frenchman of former times ; the French- 
man gets agitated at moments and knocks against his 
English envelope ; but ambition holds him back, and 
he consents to suffocate inside it. This coffin is always 
dressed in black cloth." 

This sombre portion of the background need, there- 
fore, trouble us no further. It dominated politics and 
was ignored by tout Paris. 

The aristocracy of the Faubourg St. -Germain is 
almost equally negligible. Being legitimists, they 
sulked after 1830, either living on their country estates 
or shutting themselves gloomily within the gaunt walls 
of their hotels in the Faubourg. This retirement, too, 
was not wholly due to houderie, for many of them, like 
Balzac's Princesse de Cadignan, suffered heavy financial 
losses by the Revolution. Their self-denying ordinance 
caused a great diminution in the general gaiety of Paris 
for some years. Legitimist drawing-rooms, where a 
brilliant host of guests had been wont to gather, were 
hushed and dark while the dowagers gravely discussed 
the latest news of the Duchesse de Berry. The few 
official fetes were severely boycotted, and even the 
entertainments of foreign ambassadors suffered. It 
was an irksome business for the younger members, 
particularly the ladies of the aristocracy, who eventually 
gathered courage to break out into small entertainments, 

69 



VIE DE BOHEME 



and in 1835 there was the first of a series of legitimist 
balls, the subscriptions for which went to recompense 
those whose civil list pensions had been suppressed in 
1830. After this the Faubourg St. -Germain became 
more lively, and certain houses were opened to a wider 
circle of guests. Eugene Sue, for instance, till he 
became impossible, was to be found in many legiti- 
mist drawing-rooms. Nevertheless, the Faubourg St.- 
Germain avoided attracting the public eye by any 
conspicuous festivities, and this had two effects. In 
the first place, it brought the more joyous festivities 
of tout Paris and the riotous celebrations of Bohemia 
into greater relief ; and, in the second, the men of the 
aristocracy, like the Due d'Aulnis, were driven to find 
distraction and amusement in a gayer world into which 
their own womankind was debarred from penetrating. 
It was they who formed a certain section of tout Paris ; 
they were the viveurs, the dandies, the young bloods of 
the newly founded Jockey Club, the members of the 
petit cercle in the Cafe de Paris, who joined hands with 
what may be called la haute Boheme. 

There was, however, a certain amount of neutral 
ground between the aristocracy of birth and that of 
wit to be found in the literary salons of the day, which, 
if not quite so illustrious as they had once been, shone 
with a considerable amount of brilliance. Among the 
legitimists these were, of course, not to be found, but the 
aristocracy of Napoleon was represented by the salons 

70 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

of the Duchesse de Duras and the Duchesse d'Abrantes. 
The latter, widow of Napoleon's marshal Junot, was a 
particular friend of Balzac, who was the most notable 
figure to be found at her house. She was always 
dreadfully in debt, and after being sold up she died in a 
hospital in 1838. The salon of the Princess Belgiojoso 
in the Rue Montparnasse attracted particular attention 
because, with an aristocratic hostess, it had all the 
entrain of more purely artistic gatherings. Till troubles 
in Italy called them back to their estates the Prince 
and Princess Belgiojoso were among the gayest of the 
gay. The Prince with his boon companion, Alfred de 
Musset, ruffled it merrily on the boulevard, while the 
Princess, who had many of the most brilliant men of the 
day for her lovers, filled her apartments with poets, 
artists, writers, and, above all, musicians. One who 
frequented her drawing-room hung with black velvet, 
spangled with silver stars, says she had a " fierte 
glaciale, mais curiosite suraigue." The splendom' of 
her entertainments was royal, and her concerts were 
magnificent. To this the salons of Madame Ancelot 
and Madame Recamier were a striking contrast. The 
former was composed chiefly of serious men of letters 
and politicians, while at LAbbaye-aux-Bois Madame 
Recamier acted as priestess to the adoration of the 
aging Chateaubriand. The salons of the pure Romantics 
made no pretence of splendour and were entirely free 
from the atmosphere of officialdom. The chief of them 

71 



VIE DE BOHEME 



were those of Madame Hugo, of Madame Gay (who was 
succeeded by her daughter, Delphine de Girardin), and 
of Charles Nodier, the genial librarian of the Arsenal. 
In all of these, as in the salon of the Princess Belgiojoso, 
tout Paris was to be found in force. The gatherings 
round Victor Hugo were a little too much flavoured 
by the fumes of the censer, but those of the Girardins 
and of Nodier were of the most charming gaiety. 
Balzac, in a humorous article, drew a malicious sketch 
of the exaggerated enthusiasms of Nodier's guests 
when a poem was read before them. " Cathedrale ! " 
" Ogive ! " " Pyramide d'Egypte ! " were the approved 
exclamations of ecstatic approbation. Madame An- 
celot * confesses that she found the conversation 
very amusing, but very strange. " There was never a 
serious word," she says, " never anything profound, 
sensible, or simple ; every word was meant to cause 
laughter, to make an effect. The more a thing was 
unexpected — that is, the less it was natural — the more 
prodigious was its success." She, no doubt, was pre- 
judiced, and the fact remains that every guest who 
wrote in after years of Nodier's salon, its merry con- 
versation followed inevitably by dancing, did so with 
most grateful praise, for Nodier died in 1846, leaving 
his Romantic friends to write regretful reminiscences. 
The salon of Sophie Gay and her daughter was equally 
infected by high spirits, but it was less purely literary. 
* " Les Salons de Paris." 
72 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

Liszt, Thalberg, and Berlioz made music here ; Roger 
de Beauvoir met Lamartine, and the Marquis de 
Custine sat by Balzac or Alphonse Karr. The de 
Vignys also had a salon, and Theodore de Banville 
speaks most warmly of their kindly hospitality ; but 
there was a certain aloofness about the creator 
of "Eloa," and another of his guests found that in 
his house colouring seemed absent, so that " the 
regular guests seemed to come and go in the moon- 
light." * 

To speak at greater length about the salons of the 
Romantic period would here be beside the mark. 
Bohemians, no doubt, were often to be found at Victor 
Hugo's or Nodier's, but on those occasions they were 
consciously straying outside their own boundaries. 
Neither the stately house in the Place Royale nor the 
librarian's dwelling at the Arsenal was within the 
domains of Bohemia, and no Bohemian of the time 
would have dreamed of claiming them, as the later 
" Parnassiens " might have claimed the salons of Nina 
de Kallias and Madame Ricard, for parts of their 
ordinary existence. The case, however, is different 
with the relations between le tout Paris and Bohemia. 
Le tout Paris was, as I have said, a nucleus, but a nucleus 
of disparate and constantly shifting particles. This 
perfectly undefined body had, of course, no definite 
place of assembly, but so far as it could be identified 
* Challamel : " Souvenirs d'un Hugolatre." 
73 



VIE DE BOHEME 



with any particular locality it may be said to have 
congregated on the boulevard. The Boulevard des 
Italiens — the boulevard — was the chosen spot for the 
saunterings of the chosen few, a fact which by itself is 
a proof of the smallness and privacy of Paris com- 
pared with the present day, when this same boulevard 
is flooded from morning till night by a hurrying stream 
of indistinguishable humanity. In the days of Louis 
Philippe nobody, except an ignorant foreigner, ventured 
to appear on this sacred preserve in the afternoon 
without some semblance of a title. The title may have 
been so small as a peculiarly elegant waistcoat, a 
capacity for drinking, or a happy invention for practical 
jokes, or it may have been the reputation for a ready 
wit and a trenchant pen ; but whosoever dared to show 
himself in this select society was sure to have some 
particular justification for making himself conspicuous, 
otherwise he was certain to be quizzed out of existence. 
The newcomer, if he survived a short but swift scrutiny, 
entered an informal though exclusive club of which 
every member was known to the others — he was known, 
that is, to " all Paris." All Paris, in a sense, it truly 
was, not because the greatest poets and statesmen 
belonged to it — for they had better things to do than 
to waste so much time — but because it served as the 
central intelligence department or, I might almost say, 
as the brain of Paris. A word uttered there was round 
the town in two hours ; there a poet was made or a 

74 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

play damned — in the twinkling of an eye. One day of 
its activity furnished all the wit of the next day's 
newspapers, which is hardly surprising when so many 
of its members were journalists. Le tout Paris was not 
hide-bound in its requirements ; it admitted high birth 
as one qualification for membership, wealth if accom- 
panied by good manners as another, but a certain way 
to its heart was by a brilliant handling of the pen. 
In spite of the exaggeration of the Parisian scenes in 
" Illusions Perdues," there is no unreality in Balzac's 
picture of Lucien's sudden rise from impoverished 
obscutity to fame and money. Lucien, the provincial 
poet, after his disappointing elopement with Madame 
de Bargeton, retires discomfited to a garret in the 
Quartier Latin. The door of rich protectors is shut in 
his face, no publisher will read his poems or accept 
his novels. The serpent arrives in the shape of 
Lousteau, who shows him the devilish power of 
journalism. By a lucky chance Lucien is asked to 
write a dramatic criticism for a new paper. He succeeds 
brilliantly, and he has Paris at his feet. The publisher 
cringes before his power and publishes all that he had 
formerly rejected ; with money, fine clothes, and a 
reputation, he can answer stare for stare and return 
the impertinences of Rastignac and de Marsay ; even 
Madame de Bargeton in the Faubourg St. -Germain 
cowers from his revengeful epigrams. So long as he 
remains a power in the Press he is flattered and caressed 

75 



VIE DE BO HEME 



and plumes himself, a butterfly only just emerged, in 
the glittering tout Paris of his day. 

The moral of Lucien de Rubempre, so far as we are 
immediately concerned, is not ethical, but resolves 
itself into the truth that there was an open passage 
between Bohemia and le tout Paris which was crossed 
by not a few. Gautier crossed it, so did Arsene 
Houssaye, Ourliac, the dramatist, and several others. 
There were also men who seemed to spend their time 
between the two, like the elder Dumas, Roger de 
Beauvoir, and Alfred de Musset, who combined the 
extravagance of Bohemia with the luxury of the 
boulevards in different proportions, without ever being 
entire Bohemians or complete viveurs, and who main- 
tained such a continuous communication between the 
more literary sections of le tout Paris and the finer 
talents of Bohemia that it would be in some cases 
difficult to say where one left off and the other began. 
It is therefore impossible to write of the vie de BoMme 
without entering into this larger and more conspicuous 
life of what may be called la haute Boheme. Not only 
was it the sound-board from which in a lucky moment 
the struggling whisperer on the left bank might hear 
his utterances booming forth to a multitude eager for 
novelty, not only was it an unofficial academy to which 
every Bohemian might aspire to belong as soon as he 
had made his mark, but it was also, during the years 
following 1830, animated by such a spirit of revelry and 

76 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

reckless amusement that the riots of true Bohemia 
were as pale ghosts before its more notable orgies. 
There were strong reasons for the merging of the two 
Bohemias, and the only precise distinction was the 
possession or want of money. Bohemia proper has no 
money except what it can make by its art, and as its 
inhabitants are young that is little enough. La haute 
Boheme, with a less strict limitation of years, makes 
money and spends it recklessly. Instead of pleading 
youth as the excuse of its folly, it claims the indulgence 
due to artistic achievement. However, so far as the 
generation of 1830 were concerned, this distinction was 
not absolute, for the Bohemians of 1830 were not 
invariably so destitute as their successors, so that they 
were enabled to mix to some extent in the gayer life 
of the artistic boulevardiers. 

The most universal word — which I shall adopt — 
applicable to this haute Boheme is the contemporary 
name for them, les viveurs. They were a particular 
product of the time, and no words of mine can describe 
them better than a passage from Balzac's " Illusions 
Perdues." The period of the novel is some years before 
1830, but this particular description is far more appli- 
cable to the years that followed the second Revolution. 
I quote it in French, because it is impossible to do it 
justice in a translation : 

" A cette epoque florissait une societe de jeunes gens, 
riches et pauvres, tous d^soeuvres, appeles viveurs, et 

■ 77 



VIE DE BOHEME 



qui vivaient en effet avec une incroyable insouciance, 
intrepides mangeurs, buveurs plus intrepides encore. 
Tous bourreaux d'argent et melant les plus rudes plai- 
santeries a cette existence, non pas folle, mais enragee, 
ils ne reculaient devant aucune impossibilite, faisaient 
gloire de leurs mefaits, contenus neanmoins en de 
certaines bornes : I'esprit le plus original couvrait leurs 
escapades, il etait impossible de ne pas les leur pardonner. 
Aucun fait n'accuse si hautement I'ilotisme auquel la 
Restauration avait condamne la jeunesse. Les jeunes 
gens, qui ne savaient a quoi employer leurs forces, ne 
les jetaient pas seulement dans le journalisme, dans 
les conspirations, dans la litterature et dans I'art, ils 
les dissipaient dans les plus etranges exces, tant il 
y'avait de seve et de luxuriantes puissances dans la 
jeune France. Travailleuse, cette belle jeunesse voulait 
le pouvoir et le plaisir ; artiste, elle voulait des tresors ; 
oisive, elle voulait animer ses passions ; de toute 
maniere elle voulait une place, et la politique ne lui en 
faisait nulle part." 

Balzac gives his own character, Rastignac, as an 
instance of the typical viveur, but Rastignac had a 
purpose in his heart, while some of the most prominent 
among the viveur s had none but to amuse themselves. 
These I name first, for, having no other preoccupations, 
they set the tone of the whole society. They were 
chiefly members of the aristocracy who found no place 
for their energies in a bourgeois State which sought no 
military glory. One of their leaders, the Due d'Aulnis, 
who settled down afterwards to serve the State worthily, 

78 




A Viveur 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

gives in his memoirs the reason why so many young 
men of good family gave themselves up to riotous living, 
as he did under his nom de plaisir of Alton-Shee. He 
and other young legitimists resigned their commissions 
in 1831 on finding that Louis Philippe, le roi des barri- 
cades, sided with the insurrectionists, so that, as he 
says, " the class of idlers was increased by a large 
number of legitimists who had resigned their com- 
missions and by a contingent of refugees belonging to 
the Italian, Polish, and Spanish aristocracies. To 
distract their minds from the thoughts of so many 
broken careers, so many hopes disappointed, they 
dashed with an irresistible rush into the pursuit of 
enjoyment and sought to appease their generous 
aspirations in an unbridled love of pleasure." 

These were the young men who spent all their time 
in imitating Brummell or the Comte d'Orsay, paying 
minute attention to every curve of their voluminous 
frock-coats, the patterns of their waistcoats, and the 
folding of their cravats ; who drove and rode irre- 
proachable horses imported from England, and founded 
the French Jockey Club under the auspices of Lord 
Seymour ; who dined copiously at the Cafe de Paris 
and adjourned to lounge at the Opera in the loge 
infernale, where the cream of Parisian dandyism paraded 
with its lorgnette for the edification of the public. In 
racing and gambling they found their excitement ; their 
consolation was the venal love of a ballet dancer. For 

79 



VIE DE BOHEME 



no moment of the day did they pm'sue a worthy 
ambition, and their only excuse was that, being idle 
perforce, they attained a certain exquisiteness even in 
pleasure. Sadly the Due d'Aulnis sums them up : 

" Our generation had the love of liberty, passion, 
gaiety, an artistic nature, little vanity, the desire to be 
rather than to appear ; then came discouragement, 
scepticism, the pursuit of amusement, the habit of 
smoking which fills the intervals, the taste for intoxica- 
tion, that fugitive poetry of vulgar enjoyments, and 
every prodigality to satisfy our desires. If one con- 
siders what we leave behind us, our baggage is light : 
the folly of the carnival, the invention of the can-can, 
the generalization of the cigar, the acclimatization of 
clubs and races, will be merits of small value in the 
eyes of posterity. ... Of these joyous enfants du 
Steele brought by ruin to face pitiless reality, some 
escaped from their embarrassments by suicide, others 
found death or promotion in Africa, others shared their 
names with rich heiresses ; others, persevering at all 
hazards, swallowing affronts and braving humiliations, 
lived on the precarious resources of gambling, borrow- 
ing, toadying, and parasitism ; the most wretched of all 
fell step by step into the depths of infamy ; only a 
very small number tried to save themselves by hard 
work." 

These men set the pace among the viveurs : they 
were seconded by the more ambitious young men of 
whom Balzac's Rastignac is the type, who were de- 
termined to succeed and uttered in their hearts his 

80 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

famous threat to Paris by the grave of old Goriot, 
" Maintenant c'est entre nous." These men became 
viveurs, not as a pastime, but as a means. Rastignac, 
shocked to see that virtuous devotion would not save 
Pere Goriot from a broken heart, and sick of the Maison 
Vauquer's squalor, determines to play society at its 
own game and make profit out of its corruption. He 
becomes the lover of Madame de Nucingen, one of 
Goriot's ungrateful daughters, and by allowing himself 
to become a tool in the crafty Baron Nucingen's third 
liquidation lays the foundation of his own fortunes. 
Such a man could not live in seclusion — he was forced 
into the ranks of the viveurs, in order to become a 
conspicuous figure. A smart tilbury and clothes from a 
first-class tailor were part of his stock-in-trade ; he 
could not afford to run the risk of humiliation before 
his lady by laying himself open to affront by a more 
exquisite " dandy " than himself. A Rastignac had to 
shine to compass his ends, and he shone most brilliantly 
as a viveur, playing at idleness and debauch to cloak his 
subtle schemes, and drowning the shame of his parasitism 
in a passionate self-indulgence. Thanks to a strong 
will he is entirely successful, and out of the wreck of 
his illusions and his generous impulses builds himself a 
career as a politician. 

Rastignac is one of the most wonderful characters 
created by Balzac's penetrating pessimism ; that he 
had a special place in his creator's heart is proved, I 

81 F 



VIE DE BOHEME 



think, by his frequent appearance on the stage. Those 
who dehght in the fascinating pastime of following 
Balzac's characters through the whole extent of the 
" Comedie Humaine " will know that it is impossible 
to understand Rastignac without reading " La Maison 
Nucingen," a story which, for pure virtuosity, is second 
to none of Balzac's masterpieces. They will remember 
that the scene is set in the year 1836 in a private room 
at Very's restaurant, where the impersonal narrator, 
by overhearing the conversation in the adjoining room, 
is entertained by the thrilling account of how Rastignac 
profited by Baron Nucingen's third fraudulent liquida- 
tion. The shady financial proceedings of the astute 
Alsatian — as exciting as a dashing campaign — are 
related in a marvellous series of houtades by Balzac's 
favourite grotesque, Bixiou, the own brother of 
Panurge. Now Bixiou and the three friends with 
whom he is dining are Balzac's examples of the third 
party among the viveurs, that party to which the title 
la haute Boheme is most peculiarly applicable. They 
were neither aristocratic and wealthy, like a Due 
d'Aulnis, nor aristocratic and poor, like a Rastignac, 
but men of obscure origin and unusual intelligence. 
They joined the ranks of the viveurs neither to banish 
the ennui of enforced idleness, nor out of cold calculation 
for a diplomatic end — for they were inevitably debarred 
from attaining any position in the ieau monde — but 
simply as a distraction from their pursuit of worldly 

82 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

success as journalists, artists, speculators, and general 
exploiters of society. They were not single-hearted 
warriors for an ambition ; their aim in life was not 
purely diversion, it was merely to obtain the maximum 
of selfish enjoyments, which included a satisfied vanity, 
a full purse, good food, rare wine, and a pretty mistress. 
Of them Barbey d'Aurevilly's remark was true : " Qui 
dit journalistes dit femmes entretenues. Cela veut 
souper." 

They had been pure Bohemians, most of them, in 
their earlier youth, with higher ideals and more re- 
stricted enjoyments ; but their gorge, too, had risen at 
the squalor of their Maison Vauquer, and they had 
parleyed with the devil. Discovering in themselves 
some talent for making money, they had exploited it to 
the exclusion of all others. They traded either in their 
own art or in that of others. On the boulevard they 
held their own by their engaging sallies of malicious 
gossip, by their prodigal extravagance, and, above all, 
by the fear which their power as journalists, critics, 
caricaturists, or newspaper proprietors inspired. They 
were Bohemians at heart, carrying the more pardonable 
disorders of Bohemia into less exacting circumstances, 
spending their gifts and their money without a thought, 
luxurious, venal, insatiable. Their type is to be found 
to-day in the rich mercantile, especially Jewish, society 
of all large cities ; but in Paris of the thirties and forties 
they were more powerful and more conspicuous. Though 

33 



VIE DE BOHEME 



they could never hope to enter the Jockey Club, they 
were hail-fellow-well-met with the viveurs of blue blood ; 
they served the Rastignacs when it was worth their 
while, and they were so near to the true Bohemia that 
their example was at once its temptation and its despair. 
Balzac himself sums up the four friends, Bixiou, Finot, 
Blondet, and Couture, in a passage which, having myself 
said so much, I quote in the original : 

" C'etait quatre des plus hardis cormorans eclos dans 
I'ecume qui couronne les flots incessamment re- 
nouveles de la generation presente ; aimables gar9ons 
dont I'existence est problematique, a qui Ton connait 
ni rentes ni domaines, et qui vivent bien. Ces spirituels 
condottieri de I'industrie moderne, devenue la plus 
cruelle des guerres, laissent les inquietudes a leurs 
creanciers, gardent les plaisirs pour eux, et n'ont de 
souci que de leur costume. D'ailleurs, braves a fumer, 
comme Jean Bart, leur agare sur un baril de poudre, 
peut-etre pour ne pas faillir a leur role ; plus moqueurs 
que les petits journaux, moqueurs a se moquer d'eux- 
memes, perspicaces et incredules, fureteurs d'affaires, 
avides et prodigues, envieux d'autrui, mais contents 
d'eux-memes ; profonds politiques par saillies, analysant 
tout, devinant tout, ils n'avaient pas encore pu se faire 
jour dans le monde ou ils voudraient se produire." 

Andoche Finot had risen by his acute perception of 
the commercial future of journalism. We meet him 
in his early days in " Cesar Birotteau," abandoning 
the puffing of actresses and writing of articles to less 

84 



PARISIAN SOCIETY 

perspicuous journalists, and devoting himself to what 
is now grandly called " publicity." It was he who helped 
the worthy young Anselme Popinot to push the huile 
cephalique which leipaired Birotteau's shattered fortunes. 
In " Illusions Perdues " we find him again, first pro- 
prietor of a small paper, then spending his profits and 
straining his credit in buying a larger one — one of the 
spiders into whose web poor Lucien fell. By 1836 he 
is a lord of the Press, a fictitious counterpart of Emile 
de Girardin, who with Lautour-Mezeray, another viveur, 
made a fortune by selling La Presse at half the price of 
other newspapers. Couture is a very minor character, 
a financial speculator, who only hung on the fringe of 
the viveur s. Blondet and Bixiou are more important. 
The former had many counterparts in Paris of the day. 
He was " a newspaper editor, a man of much intelli- 
gence, but slipshod, brilliant, capable, lazy, knowing, 
but allowing himself to be exploited, equally faithless 
and good-natured by caprice ; one of those men one 
likes, but does not respect. Sharp as a stage soubrette, 
incapable of refusing his pen to anyone who asked for 
it or his heart to anyone who would borrow it." 

Bixiou is no longer young in 1836. Balzac gives 
an earlier portrait of him in " Les Employes," when he 
is a minor official, caricaturist and journalist, poor, 
ambitious, a real liver of la vie de Boheme. But, says 
Balzac, "he is no longer the Bixiou of 1825, but that 
of 1836, the misanthropical buffoon whose fun is known 

85 



VIE DE BQHEME 



to have the most sparkle and the most acidity, a wretch 
enraged at having spent so much wit at a pure loss, 
furious at not having picked up his bit of flotsam in 
the last revolution, giving everyone a kick like a true 
Pierrot at the play, having his period and its scandalous 
stories at his fingers' ends, decorating them with his 
droll inventions, jumping on everybody's shoulders like 
a clown, and trying to leave a mark on them like an 
executioner." 

Such, in general, were the viveurs who postured in 
the front of the Parisian stage — equally at home on 
the steps of Tortoni's or in the Cafe de Paris, in the 
Princess Belgiojoso's drawing-room or the luxurious 
boudoir of a Coralie or Florine, making the talk and 
spreading the gossip, blowing up the reputations and 
blasting the characters of the town. To know their 
habits and eccentricities places those of the true 
Bohemia in a proper light. In drawing a composite 
picture of them I have drawn upon fiction, but in 
another chapter I will justify these generalizations by 
introducing some of the real heroes of le tout Paris. 



86 




Fashionables 



V 

LES VIVEURS 

The most exalted section among the viveurs, the 
members of which were farthest removed from any 
suspicion of Bohemianism, was formed of young 
men from noble families. Their names, which do not 
concern us here, may be found in the list of those who 
started the petit cercle of the Cafe de Paris. This was 
an exclusive dining club founded by a set of gay livers 
who dreaded the political discussions of the one or two 
regular clubs then existing, but wished to have a place 
where they could dine together without disturbance by 
casual strangers. They hired, therefore, some rooms 
from Alexandre, the proprietor of the restaurant, and 
continued there till the club broke up in 1848. Little 
need be said of them as a body, except that they were 
the arbiters of Parisian elegance. As such, their chief 
effort was to curb the luxuriance of Parisian taste 
within the limits of English correctness. Anglomania 
was all the rage. Every dandy — a word then definitely 
adopted by the French — had his tilbury or phaeton and 
his tiny English " tiger," smoked his cigar, suffered 
from his " spleen," and tried to face life with an insolent 
air of imperturbability — a crowning proof of good 

87 



VIE DE BOHEME 



taste when the effort was at all successful. This 
Anglomania was not entirely confined to the boulevard ; 
it was partly an effect of Romanticism. Lady Morgan * 
laughs at it, giving a most amusing account of a per- 
formance of " Rochester " at the Porte St. -Martin. The 
character that created the greatest sensation, she says, 
was the Watchman, "who was dressed like an alguazil, 
with a child's rattle in his hand." Whenever he 
appeared there was a general murmur of " Ha ! C'est 
le vatchman." — " Regarde done, ma fille, c'est le 
vatchman ; ton papa t'a souvent parle des vatch- 
men." — "Ah, c'est le vatchman." — " Oui, c'est le 
vatchman." Great play, too, was made with tea. 
Rochester entertained his merry companions with tea ; 
Mr. Wilkes poisoned his wife in it. This latter incident 
gave the highest pleasure : 

" Dieu, que c'est anglois ! Toujours le the et la 
jalousie a Londres ! " 

The Parisian ideas and imitations of English manners 
were, no doubt, pretty ridiculous, and must have caused 
considerable amusement to Lord Seymour, one of the 
few Englishmen who were conspicuous among the 
aristocratic viveurs. He was the illegitimate son of 
Lady Yarmouth, daughter-in-law of the notorious 
Lord Hertford. He lived entirely in Paris, where, 
being extremely rich, he kept a fine house at the corner 
* " Paris in 1829 and 1830." 



LES VIVEURS 



of the Rue Taitbout and the boulevard. Here he 
cultivated cigar-smoking and physical exercise with 
great assiduity. He was a splendid boxer and fencer, 
and all the finest bruisers and blades, amateur and 
professional, were to be met in his salle d'armes. He 
took great pride in his strength, which was abnormal, 
in his skill as a whip and his success on the race-course. 
French sport owes him a permanent debt for his 
successful starting of the Jockey Club, but he can hardly 
have been a very popular member of a society, for he 
was cold and brutal, a man who took a defeat ran- 
corously and one who had a cynical delight in causing 
suffering to his hangers-on. His misanthropy was the 
reason of his gradually dropping out of society after 
1842, and it would have been beside the point to mention 
him here had it not been for the quite undeserved 
notoriety which he acquired in Paris during the thirties 
as the bacchanalian lord of misrule at all the carnivals. 
It was a strange case of mistaken identity which 
persisted for many years in spite of categorical denials. 
The more aristocratic of the viveurs were not, as I have 
said, Bohemians ; but during the carnival, which was 
celebrated by all the population with extraordinary 
licence, some of the more youthful let themselves go 
and became revellers with the rest. For the last three 
days of the carnival the streets of Paris, by day and by 
night, were given up to an orgy. Crowds of mas- 
queraders filled the pavements, the restaurants, and the 

89 



VIE DE BOHEME 



theatres, where fancy-dress balls were held. The richer 
masks had carriages drawn by postilions, in which they 
drove among the crowd, scattering confetti and sweet- 
meats and even money, indulging in every kind of 
quaint antic and gallantry, and inciting the vulgar to 
engage them in a wordy warfare in which volleys of 
the coarsest expletives were fired on both sides. Riot 
reached its culmination on the night of Shrove Tuesday, 
when the revellers, after an orgy of feasting and dancing 
at the Barriere de la Courtille, on the north-east of Paris, 
ended by descending the steep hill towards the city 
in a state of bacchic frenzy. This was the famous 
descente de la Courtille, at which, as at all the other 
revels, a certain carriage, drawn by six horses and filled 
by a motley party of young men, was the central object 
of admiration. No challenger ever worsted the leader 
of this gang at a bout of blackguarding, no costumes 
equalled his in originality, no mask so tormented and 
excited the crowd as he with his harangues, his missiles, 
and his largesse. This was the man known to all the 
populace of Paris as " Milord Arsouille," which, as all 
Paris would have told you, was simply the nom de 
guerre of Lord Seymour. But it was not so. The real 
" Milord Arsouille " was a certain Charles de la Battut, 
son of an English chemist and a French emigree. His 
father, unwilling to compromise his position in England 
by recognizing him, paid for his adoption by the ruined 
Breton Count de la Battut. He was educated in Paris, 

90 



LES VIYEURS 



where, even in his youth, he showed a most dissolute 
character. He dehghted to frequent the lowest haunts, 
and there learnt that mastery of slang and that skill 
as a boxer which were his pride. The death of his real 
father gave him a large fortune, which he proceeded to 
dissipate with the utmost extravagance and bad taste. 
His house in the Boulevard des Capucines and his 
personal attire were equally flamboyant. During his 
short period of glory he was on certain terms of in- 
timacy with the more rowdy among the young bloods 
of good family, who in after years looked back, like the 
Due d'Aulnis, with shame to some of their exploits in 
his company. His most notable achievement was to 
introduce the cancan into the fashionable fancy-dress ball 
at the Varietes in 1832, and his perpetual grief was that 
all his eccentricities were attributed to Lord Seymour, in 
spite of his utmost efforts to proclaim the difference of 
identity. In 1835 he died, a shattered roue, at Naples. 
The only other English name deserving comment in 
the petit cercle of the Cafe de Paris is that of Major 
Fraser, whose personality was an enigma. He was one 
of the most popular characters on the boulevard, and 
an honoured friend of the most exclusive diners at the 
Cafe Anglais or the Cafe de Paris, yet nothing was 
known of his personal history. He spoke English 
perfectly, but was not an Englishman ; he never alluded 
to his parents, and lived as a bachelor in an entresol at 
the corner of the Rue Lafitte. He was never short 

91 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of money, but the source of his income was a mystery ; 
and when he died no letters were found, but only a 
file of receipts, including a receipt from an undertaker 
for his funeral expenses, and a direction that his clothes 
and furniture were to be sold for the benefit of the 
poor. In spite of the mystery smrounding him he 
was a prominent figure among the viveurs. His tight 
blue frock-coat and his grey trousers were models for 
the most fastidious dandies ; his kindness and gentle- 
ness to everyone except professional politicians was 
extreme ; he quoted Horace freely and had a complete 
knowledge of political history with a prodigious 
memory. Major Fraser's story could be paralleled by 
the head waiter of many a London club. While he lived 
he was a favourite ; when he died he simply vanished.* 

There are only two other members of the petit cercle 
whom I wish to mention — ^Alfred de Musset and Roger 
de Beauvoir — because they form a link between the 
exclusiveness of that society and the hurly-burly 
existence of la haute Boheme, to which both more 
properly belonged. In the early Romantic days Alfred 
de Musset, with his beautiful, bored face set off by the 
fair curls that fell over his eyes, was the petted darling 
of Paris, its perfect dandy wafting the triple essence of 
bouquet de Romantisme. Nevertheless, Alfred de Musset, 
though his name was on the lips of all dandies and his 

* Major Fraser's name appears in many memoirs of the time, but I 
owe the above account to " An Englishman in Paris," by A. D, Vandam. 

92 



LES VIVEURS 



poetry set a fashion in Bohemia, never took among 
men the place that seemed to be his due. He might 
have been a true Bohemian of 1830, but he disavowed 
his Romantic companions of letters for the greater 
splendour of fashionable life ; while among the exquisites 
of the boulevard he found it impossible to preserve that 
impassive demeanour and attention to the niceties 
of dandyism which were inexorably demanded. His 
nature was far too passionate to make him for long 
together a comfortable companion for men, and his 
personal history, apart from his poetry, is a chapter 
of relations with women, of whom George Sand is the 
most notable. The ashes of his career have been 
raked over with most scrupulous care since his death, 
but it is no purpose of mine to take part in the scaveng- 
ing. To have omitted Alfred de Musset's name would 
have been impossible, but having mentioned him, I can 
leave him. Though he hymned Musette and drank 
deeply with Prince Belgiojoso, he had as little place in 
Bohemia, high or low, as Lamartine or Victor Hugo. 
Their throne was the study, his the boudoir. 

There are no such reservations to be made for Roger 
de Beauvoir, whom Madame de Girardin called " Alfred 
de Musset aux cheveux noirs." He was the arch- 
viveur, with one exquisitely shod foot on the boulevard, 
the other in Bohemia, the gayest of all those who supped, 
the insatiable quaffer of champagne, the inexhaustible 
fountain of epigram, the king of la haute Boheme, the 

93 



VIE DE BOHEME 



very incarnation of the Noctambule in Charpentier's 
delightful opera, "Louise." His family was the good 
Norman family of de Bully, and he took the name of 
Beauvoir from one of the two estates which were his 
heritage. Those who were responsible for his early 
guidance clearly intended that he should make his way 
in diplomacy — a career in which his good looks, 
sympathetic voice, and charming manners would have 
greatly helped his pioneering — for he was sent to be 
Polignac's secretary when that unfortunate minister 
occupied the embassy at London. When his chief 
came back to the stormy days of July, the debonair 
secretary, judging no doubt that any association with 
politics was incompatible with gilded ease, abandoned 
all attempts to play the game of a Rastignac, and 
pursued his fantasies in airy independence. The 
Romanticism of the Jeune-France party attracted at 
once the enthusiasm of a young man, just in his majority 
by 1830, who was naturally a lover of brilliant colouring. 
He became a fanatical medievalist, who displayed with 
pride a Gothic cabinet panelled in carved oak, hung 
with black velvet, and lit by stained-glass windows. 
The ceiling was covered with coats -of -arms ; the chief 
decorations were a panoply of armour and an old 
prie-dieu on which a missal of 1350 opened its illuminated 
pages. Even in 1842, when Maxime du Camp first met 
him, he still dreamt of reviving the age of chivalry, 
having just created a sensation by waltzing at a ball in 



LES VIVEURS 



full armour, fainting and falling with the clatter of 
innumerable stove-pipes. Undeterred by this mishap, 
he proposed to form a company, to be called the 
" Societe des champs clos de France," which was to 
buy land for a tilting-ground, Arab steeds, and armour 
for the purpose of holding weekly tourneys. The 
shares were to be 1000 francs each, but as Maxime du 
Camp's guardian prohibited the purchase of any by his 
enthusiastic ward, the project was dropped. Like 
every true Romantic he wrote a medieval novel, but his 
novel, " L'Ecoher de Cluny," unlike those of the 
majority, was published and brought him considerable 
fame. After its publication in 1832, he became in some 
sort a man of letters, but he never added to his re- 
putation, being far too bent upon the pursuit of pleasure 
to bear the restrictions of any profession. Having 
failed as a writer of vaudevilles, he found his true 
vocation as the leader of a band of revellers and a 
composer of wicked epigrams in verse. His epigrams, 
always written impromptu upon the pages of a notebook, 
were a real addition to the gaiety of Paris. Here is one 
composed when Ancelot — literary husband of a literary 
wife — was elected to the Academy : 

Le menage Ancelot, par ses vers et sa prose, 
Devait a ce fauteuil arriver en tout cas. 
Car la femme accouchait toujours de quelque chose, 
Quand le mari n'engendrait pas. 
95 



VIE DE BOHEME 



His dress was of the highest elegance in a day when 
men were not confined to a funereal black. His blue 
frock-coat, tight-waisted with amply curving skirts, 
broad velvet revers, and gilt buttons, fitted as neatly 
as one of his own epigrams ; his blue waistcoats and 
light grey trousers were treasures, his hat the curliest 
and shiniest to be seen. In his own apartment he 
tempered the shadows of his Gothic furniture by wearing 
a green silk dressing-gown and red cashmere trousers. 
So long as their fortunes lasted he and his companions 
bade dull care begone. At midday they left the softest 
of beds, and, after a serious hour of dressing, met for 
dejeuner at the Caf6 Anglais, the Maison d'Or, or the 
Cafe Hardi. By four they were to be seen in force upon 
the boulevard, displaying their waistcoats and quizzing 
the ladies upon the marble steps of Tortoni's. Before 
dinner they would visit a drawing-room or two, buy a 
picture or bargain for some bibelot — a Toledo blade or a 
Turkish narghile — with a dealer in curiosities. The 
evening programme was a set of variations upon the 
ground bass of dinner, opera, supper. Roger de 
Beauvoir was one of the company who haunted the 
famous loge infernale at the Opera, and it is needless to 
say that their attention was devoted more to the 
ballet than to the music, for they were all connoisseurs 
in choreography and had a personal acquaintance with 
the dancers, which developed in most cases into some- 
thing more than Platonic affection. The foyer des 

96 



LES VIVEURS 



artistes was the enchanted garden of la haute Boheme, 
where they sought their " Cynthia of this minute " as 
the true Bohemians did at the Chaumi^re or the Closerie 
des Lilas. 

The science of practical joking was sedulously 
cultivated by Roger and his friends, who rejoiced to 
bring off successful "mystifications." One of Roger's 
best was played upon Duponchel, the director of the 
Opera. One day the whole street where Duponchel 
lived was set all agog by the appearance of a magnificent 
funeral procession, consisting of a hearse and fifty 
carriages, with Roger and his friend Cabanon occupying 
the first carriage as chief mourners ; the head of the 
procession drew up at Duponchel's door, to his great 
indignation. The joke up to this point was of no 
especial originality, but Roger gave it a turn of his own. 
The Romantic fashion dictated that every chapter in a 
novel should be headed by an epigraph, as extravagant 
as possible, from the work of some Romantic author. 
Roger therefore headed a chapter in his novel " Pul- 
chinella," which was just appearing, " Feu Duponchel 
(Histoire contemporaine)." Even after he was hope- 
lessly in debt he remained a joker. Being saddled with 
a thin and dirty bailiff, he gave him ten francs a day, 
washed him, dressed him as a Turk, and gave an evening 
party in honour of his Pasha, who could only talk in signs. 
The supreme mystificateurs, however, were Romieu and 
Monnier. Romieu was reputed to be the most amusing 

97 G 



VIE DE BOHEME 



man in Paris, and so firmly founded was his reputation 
that nobody ever took him seriously. When he became 
prefect of Quimperle — an easy post which enabled him 
to take many a holiday upon the boulevard — he was 
faced with the problem of dealing with a plague of 
cockchafers in the prefecture. He hit upon the wise 
and perfectly successful device of offering fifty francs 
for every bushel of dead cockchafers. The Bretons 
were grateful enough, but all Paris was in a roar. Here 
was the crowning farce of which only its lost joker 
would have been capable, and it supplied the smaller 
comic papers with copy for several days. Romieu 
made Monnier's acquaintance in an appropriate way. 
About eleven o'clock one night the artist heard a knock 
at his door, which he opened to a stranger, who came in 
and entered into a polite conversation without a word of 
introduction. Monnier made no comment, but replied 
with equal affability. After an hour or so, as the 
stranger remained, he ransacked his sideboard and 
entertained his guest with an impromptu supper. 
Time passed, the small hours struck, and still the 
stranger made no sign of going. Monnier therefore 
announced that he was ready for bed and that his sofa 
was at his guest's disposition. So they parted for the 
night, and next morning when they met Monnier's 
first words were " You are Romieu," a compliment 
returned by " You are Monnier." 

Monnier, says Champfleury in his memoir, belonged 

98 



LES VIVEURS 



to Bohemia till the end of his life ; but it is clear that 
this Bohemia was that of the boulevards and cafes. 
He was no real Romantic, and far too fond of a good 
time to stay in the Bohemia which Champfleury himself 
knew so well. As a writer of short stories and dialogues, 
an actor, and an artist he had a huge success in the 
thirties, and he followed the pleasures of life with in- 
exhaustible zest. Balzac drew him as Bixiou in " Les 
Employes." The portrait, according to Champfleury, 
was very true, but unjust : 

" Intrepide chasseur de grisettes, fumeur, amuseur 
de gens, dineur et soupeur, se mettant partout au 
diapason, brillant aussi bien dans les coulisses qu'au 
bal des grisettes dans I'allee des Veuves, il etonnait 
autant a table que dans une partie de plaisir ; en 
verve a minuit dans la rue, comme le matin si vous 
le preniez au saut du lit, mais sombre et triste avec 
lui-meme, comme la plupart des grands comiques. 
Lance dans le monde des actrices et des acteurs, des 
ecrivains, des artistes, et de certaines femmes dont la 
fortune est aleatoire, il vivait bien, allait au spectacle 
sans payer, jouait a Frascati, gagnait souvent. Enfin 
cet artiste, vraiment profond, mais par eclairs, se 
balan9ait dans la vie comme sur une escarpolette, sans 
s'inquieter du moment oia la corde casserait." 

Innumerable stories are told of his practical jokes. 
Being an expert ventriloquist, he was wont to enter 
an omnibus and without moving a muscle utter in a 
feminine voice : " Je vous aime, monsieur le con- 

99 



VIE DE BOHEME 



ducteur," at which there would be tremendous con- 
sternation among the petticoats. The dames swept 
the company with searching glares of outraged decency, 
the demoiselles blushed, and the embarrassed conductor 
looked in vain for his temptress. One evening he was 
burdened with a bore in some illuminated public 
garden. To escape the tedium of conversation he 
pretended to be greatly interested in some matter which 
necessitated his walking carefully all round the garden 
and gazing intently at all the gas-lamps. After half an 
hour of these mysterious peregrinations the bore, who 
had been forced to keep silence, asked with impatience 
what was the matter. " I bet you five francs," said 
Monnier, " that there are here seventy-nine bees de gaz 
(gas - j ets ) . " The bore accepted the challenge with delight, 
and another half -hour was spent in silent perambulation 
and calcvilation. At length he announced triumphantly 
that he only counted seventy-eight. "Ah," said Monnier 
as he made his escape, and pointing to the orchestra, 
" vous avez oublie le bee de la clarinette." 

Monnier, the great artist, the disappointed actor, was 
at the other end of the scale to Lord Seymour and his 
friends. They had a position without activity : his 
activity made his position. No great artist remains long 
in Bohemia. Some work their way out on foot : he rose 
from it, one might say, in a balloon, by which, after dis- 
porting himself for some years above the mists, he was 
landed for his later days in the obscurity of a province. 

100 



LES VIVEURS 



Such a man, at home in all society, is restricted by none. 
As he was not the perfect Bohemian, so he was not 
the whole-hearted viveur, for whose complete picture I 
must return to Roger de Beauvoir and his set, some 
of whom are described in Roger's own little book, 
" Soupeurs de mon Temps." It is a melancholy 
epitaph of a brilliant company. The sparkling wit of 
their gatherings has vanished with the bubbles of the 
champagne they drank, and little is left on record but 
the capacity of their stomachs. They took an immense 
pride in their consumption of champagne. Briffaut, a 
clever journalist and a particular friend of Roger's, was 
the king of topers. To him was due the invention of 
"ingurgitation," which consisted in pouring a bottle of 
champagne into a bell-shaped glass cover, such as was 
used to protect cheese, and swallowing it at a draught. 
He once challenged a noted English toper and gave 
him a glass a bottle ; the victory was easily his, for 
he disposed of a dozen. Among other champions who 
helped to make Veuve Clicquot's fortune were Armand 
Malitourne, a singularly gifted man, a journalist, and 
at one time secretary to the minister Montalivet ; 
Bequet, whose good taste Roger himself extolled ; and 
Bouffe, the director of the Vaudeville. Then there was 
Emile Cabanon, who lives in Romantic annals as the 
author of the extravagant " Roman pour les Cui- 
sinieres." Champfleury,* on the authority of Camille 

* "Vignettes Romantiques." 
101 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Rogier, the artist, says that he appeared one day upon 
the boulevard and won himself forthwith a place by his 
gifts as a story-teller, becoming a favourite with all 
from Prince Belgiojoso downwards. He is one of the 
reputed originals — there are two or three — of Balzac's 
Comte de la Palferine (in " Un Prince de la Boheme "), 
who, being struck with the appearance of a lady passing 
along the street, at once attached himself to her : in 
vain she tried to get rid of the importunate by saying 
she was going to visit a friend, for her cavalier came 
too and mixed with all urbanity in the conversation, 
rising to take his leave at the same time as the object 
of his sudden passion. This assiduity so captivated the 
besieged one's heart that she struck her colours. It is 
a propos of Cabanon that Champfleury refers with some 
contempt to " les gentilshommes de lettres du boule- 
vard de Gand, qui nageaient comme des poissons dans 
le fleuve de la dette, se fiaient plus sur leurs relations 
que sur leur plume, depensaient de I'esprit comptant 
en veux-tu en voila." Alfred Tattet,* the rich son of 
an agent de change, who was introduced to the viveurs 
by Felix Arvers, the poet of one sonnet, was another 
of the crew. Alfred de Musset, Roger de Beauvoir, 
Romieu, and others made merry at his sumptuous 
entertainments till he varied the monotony by running 
over the frontier with a married woman, leaving Arvers 

* L6on Sech6 tells his story in " La Jeunesse Doree sous Louis 
Philippe." 

102 



LES VIVEURS 



to look after his affairs. In 1843 he returned to settle 
down at Fontainebleau with the wife of a German in 
Frankfort. Another young man, with the promising 
name of Chaudesaigues — a corruption of the Latin for 
" hot water " — came to Paris in 1835 with a fortune of 
30,000 francs, which he squandered in a few years, 
and then struggled on as a journalist till he died of 
apoplexy. 

I should wrong the viveurs if I allowed it to be implied 
that they were all purely pleasure -seekers. Some of 
them were successful business men besides. Lautour- 
Mezeray, for instance, who was distinguished by the 
white camellia in his buttonhole, laid the foundations 
of his fortune by starting a paper called Le Voleur, which 
was entirely composed of cuttings from other papers. 
Like Andoche Finot, he went on from small to great, 
founding La Mode and Le Journal des Enfants, the first 
children's paper. He helped to start La Presse with 
Emile de Girardin, who was another of the more solid 
among the viveurs. Doctor V6ron, stout and self- 
important, his face half hidden in a huge cravat, held 
an important place among them. He began life as a 
medical practitioner, but made a fortune by exploiting 
a certain Pate Regnault and took to political journalism. 
Between 1831 and 1835 he was an extremely successful 
director of the Opera, and in 1838 bought Le Con- 
stitutionnel, which he sold fourteen years later for two 
million francs. To him, it is said, is due the invention 

103 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of the tournedos. Certainly, he was a prominent gas- 
tronome, and the terror of head waiters, for he was no 
mere swiller of champagne, but one who insisted on 
perfect vintages combined with perfect cooking. In the 
thirties, when " Robert le Diable " was fiHing the Opera 
and his own pocket, he was a constant diner at the 
restaurants, but in later years he never dined except 
at his own house, where Sophie, his cook and major- 
domo, alone preserved the proper traditions of gas- 
tronomy. Maecenas-like, he made a certain literary 
set free of his table. Their places were always laid, 
they helped themselves, and they remained as long as 
they pleased, whether their host left them or no. 
Theodore de Banville and many others have celebrated 
the excellent " cuisine " and its accompaniment of wit, 
but a reader of Veron's " Souvenirs d'un bourgeois de 
Paris " will be inclined to suspect that the doctor 
himself was rather a prosy humbug, who only supplied 
the appropriate stimulus for the wit of his guests. 
The chief of these, another celebrated viveur, was 
Nestor Roqueplan, whose toilette was unsurpassed and 
whose wit inexhaustible. He was a Parisian to the 
marrow ; a day from Paris was to him a day out of 
Paradise. Like most of his generation, he began as a 
journalist, but diverged to become a director of theatres. 
The Pantheon, Nouveaut^s, Saint-Antoine, Vari^t^s, 
Opera, Opera Comique, and Chatelet passed successively 
under his sway, and he lost money at them all except 

104 



LES VIVEURS 



at the Varietes, during his management of which he 
wrote those sparkhng " Nouvelles a la main " which 
are perhaps the freshest examples of purely ephemeral 
contemporary wit. 

The Revolution of 1848 dispersed the viveurs for 
ever. It was not that Paris diminished in gaiety 
during the Second Empire nor that the cafes ceased to 
be invaded by merry bands of fetards, but simply that 
Paris became too gay, too large, and too cosmopolitan. 
The boulevard was no longer to be kept sacred for a 
chosen few, and a new generation was rising, which 
found other channels for its energies than ingurgitatory 
wit-combats. Under the new regime there was a court 
and a more exciting foreign policy. The aristocracy 
threw off its sulks, the prosperous industrial conquered 
his diffidence, the pleasure-loving stranger found that 
all railways led to Paris. The old guard was over- 
whelmed, or rather would have been overwhelmed if 
not already well-nigh crumbled away. Men with 
clear heads and practical aims, who had only devoted 
their leisure to enjoyment, like Veron, Roqueplan, de 
Girardin, survived to retire with all the honours of war, 
forming small coteries for the cultivation of wit and 
good cheer, but shunning, instead of affronting, the 
public eye. But the rest, the viveurs of every hour, 
where were they ? Dead, worn-out, shattered in 
health, paying the dismal reckoning for the dissipation 
of their heyday, poor, neglected, forgotten. Mis- 

105 



VIE DE BOHEME 



fortune overtook the gay Roger from the moment he 
married Mademoiselle Doze, the actress. For six years 
he was pestered with lawsuits for separation, till a 
divorce was finally procured. He had drunk, as he 
said, 150,000 francs worth of champagne and written 
300 songs. The francs were gone, the songs lost, and 
nothing was left but the gout. 

Jadisfetais des plus ingamhes, 
Mais Mlas ! destins inhumains, 
Le papier que favais aux mains, 
A present je le porte aux jambes. 

He could jest to the last, but in his last days he was a 
pathetic sight, fat, prematurely old, infirm, confined to 
a wretched chamber, and denied even the champagne 
which could charm away his regrets. The dapper 
figure that had once filled a frock-coat so jauntily was 
now a shapeless corpulence hidden in the loose folds 
of a greasy dressing-gown. He died of gout, as Alfred 
de Musset died of drink. Malitourne, after sinking 
lower and lower in drunkenness, died mad ; apoplexy 
carried off Chaudesaigues and Charles Froment ; Arvers 
died of spinal paralysis ; B^quet ended in a hospital ; 
gout killed Cabanon and Tattet ; while Briffaut expired 
in a mad-house. The mental pronouncement of their 
funeral orations I leave to any moralist who chooses, 
bidding him remember that if they failed as individuals 

106 



LES VIVEURS 



to fulfil the highest destinies of mankind they were 
victims of a strange fever in common with all the 
generation of 1830. 

Of that generation they were a part, perhaps the 
most conspicuous part at the time. I might almost 
liken them to the set of " swells " in some public school, 
privileged themselves yet censorious of others, always 
in the eye of their small world, influential in their 
smallest acts, embodying conspicuously the current 
fashion and expressing the prevailing tone, shining 
inevitably as a pattern, envied by most, respected, 
outwardly, by all. In Louis Philippe's time Parisian 
society was as limited a corporation as a school. Its 
" swells " attained their position, as all " swells " do, 
by excelling in a pursuit in which excellence is universally 
admired. They excelled in tinging their life with a 
medieval splendour of colouring, they had some 
prowess in poetry and letters, they performed miracles 
of wit in the new, spirit of busy, ever-bubbling, bruyant 
fun. As the " swells " of Romanticism they justified 
their position so long as the conditions allowed. 
Bohemia, in some respects, was like a " house " in the 
same school, with a smaller corporate life of its own, 
yet influenced by the powers outside it, the more so 
because some of its members had risen themselves to 
the company of " swells." In this not very exalted, 
but true, simile is my reason for devoting space to 
the viveurs. They were not Bohemians for the most 

107 



VIE DE BOHEME 



part, but many Bohemians hoped to be viveurs as 
Etonians hope to be in " Pop." On them rested 
the high Hghts of the picture, but we can now peer 
into the background and discern the true Bohemia 
of 1830. 



108 



VI 
LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

Mil Huit Cent Trente / Aurore 
Qui nt'eblouis encore, 
Promesse du destin. 
Riant matin ! 

Aube ou le soleil plonge ! 
Quelquefois un beau songe 
Me rend V eclat vermeil 
De ton reveil. 

Jetant ta pourpre rose 
En notre del morose, 
Tu parais, et la nuit 
Soudain s^enfuit. 

Theodore de Banville 

The Romantic Bohemia has been the theme of so many 
French writers, from the time when the -first reminis- 
cences appeared to the present day, when a Leon 
Seche and a Phihbert Audebrand, following the lead 
of Charles Asselineau, the pious chijfonnier of Roman- 
ticism, industriously collect the very last scraps of 
authentic information, that a foreigner with all a 

109 



VIE DE BOHEME 



foreigner's limitations may well hesitate to mar the 
pretty edifice erected to the memory of 1830 by some 
clumsy addition of his own. Yet I take heart from the 
consideration that even in France there is, at least to 
my knowledge, no complete account of this Bohemia. 
Those who would follow its annals in their original 
tongue must do so in a multitude of books, published 
at different times, some of which are rarities only to be 
found in museums and the largest libraries. Moreover, 
the French chronicler writes from a point of view which 
a foreigner cannot adopt, and makes assumptions 
which a foreigner cannot grant. All the historical and 
literary associations on which I have touched in a 
former chapter make it a subject which even to-day 
excites passionate enthusiasm and equally passionate 
reprobation across the Channel. The foreigner can 
approach in a cooler temper, though I postulate in 
my readers a general sympathy for Gautier's scarlet 
pourpoint and all that it symbolized. In this cooler 
temper, then, not seeing red, but with a tendency, at 
least, to see rosy, a foreigner may glance at a life, so 
essentially limited by its period and its nationality, 
without challenging unfavourable comparisons. 

The Romantic Bohemia was part of Parisian society, 
a fact of which I have already tried to point out the 
implications. It might add to the general picture to 
know how society judged Bohemia. Contemporary 
record is scarce, not only because Bohemia itself so 

110 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 



largely supplied the personal element in the journalism 
of its time, but also because the conception — indeed, 
the name — was so new. There is, however, something 
to be picked up from allusions here and there which is 
of some service in the definition of boundaries. Nestor 
Roqueplan, for instance, in his little book, " La Vie 
Parisienne," defines Bohemia as comprehending " all 
those in Paris who dine rarely and never go to bed." 
He distinguishes sloth and debt as the salient faults in 
the general disorder of its life, and he is not too ap- 
preciative of its abilities, though he admits that there 
is an inner Bohemia, " intelligent^ et spirituelle," 
composed of a certain number of young men with the 
makings of excellent ministers, irreproachable officials, 
and daring men of business. In conclusion he asserts 
the great truth that " Bohemia must be young ; it 
must be continually renewed. If the Bohemian were 
more than thirty, he might be confused with the rogue." 
This is excellent testimony from a man who, himself 
no real Bohemian, had extensive relations with Bohemia 
as one on whom its young playwrights inflicted the 
reading of their plays. Balzac is the next witness, 
though it is remarkable that his only specific reference 
to Bohemia is in the short story, " Un Prince de la 
Boh^me," which tells how the young Comte de la 
Palf^rine, a penniless son of a general who died after 
Wagram, satisfied his vanity in the person of his 
mistress, Madame du Bruel. He was debarred by his 

111 



VIE DE BOHEME 



position from having a wife worthy of his aristocratic 
pride, but that at least his mistress might be worthy, 
Madame du Bruel, an actress married to a writer of 
vaudevilles, worries her husband into the acquisition of 
riches, pohtical power, and a peerage. At the beginning 
of this story — one of Balzac's most curious — he gives a 
general definition of Bohemia : 

" Bohemia, which ought to be called the wisdom of 
the Boulevard des Italiens, is composed of young men 
all over twenty, and under thirty, years of age, all men 
of genius in their manner, still little known, but destined 
to make themselves known and then to be very dis- 
tinguished ; they are already distinguished in the 
days of the carnival, during which they discharge the 
plethora of their wit, which is confined during the rest 
of the year, in more or less comic inventions. In what 
an age do we live ! What absurd authority allows 
immense forces thus to be dissipated ! In Bohemia 
there are diplomats capable of upsetting the plans of 
Russia, if they felt themselves supported by the power 
of France. One meets in it writers, administrators, 
soldiers, journalists, artists ! In a word, all kinds of 
capacity and intellect are represented in it. It is a 
microcosm. If the Emperor of Russia were to buy 
Bohemia for some twenty millions, supposing it willing 
to quit the asphalt of the boulevards, and were to 
deport it to Odessa, in a year Odessa would be Paris. 
There it is, the useless, withering flower of that admir- 
able youth of France which Napoleon and Louis XIV 
cherished, and which has been neglected for thirty 

112 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

years by that gerontocracy under which all things in 
France are drooping. . . . Bohemia has nothing and 
lives on that which it has. Hope is its religion, self- 
confidence is its code, charity passes for its budget. 
All these young men are greater than their misfortunes — 
below fortune, but above destiny." 

The narrator of the story, the witty Nathan, goes on 
to give some particular traits of La Palferine, who 
would be King of Bohemia, if Bohemia could suffer a 
king. Some of these are rather vulgar pleasantries 
which display the bluntness of Balzac's sense of humour 
rather than La Palferine's wit, as when the Bohemian, 
angrily accosted by a bourgeois in whose face he had 
thrown the end of his cigar, calmly replied : " You 
have sustained your adversary's fire ; the seconds declare 
that honour is satisfied." La Palferine was never 
solvent : once, when he owed his tailor a thousand 
francs, the latter 's head clerk, sent to collect the debt, 
found the debtor in a wretched sixth-floor attic on the 
outskirts of Paris, furnished with a miserable bed and a 
rickety table ; to the request for payment the count 
replied with a gesture worthy of Mirabeau : "Go tell 
your master of the state in which you have found 
me ! " In affairs of love, though he was impetuous 
as a besieger, he was proud as a conqueror. After 
having passed a fortnight of unmixed happiness with 
a certain Antonia, he found that, as Balzac puts it, 
she was treating him with a want of frankness. He 

113 H 



VIE DE BOHEME 



therefore wrote to her the following letter, which made 
her famous : 

" Madame, — Your conduct astonishes as much as it 
afflicts me. Not content with rending my heart by 
your disdain, you have the indelicacy to keep my 
tooth-brush, which my means do not allow me to replace, 
my estates being mortgaged beyond their value. 

Farewell, too lovely and too ungrateful friend ! 

May we meet again in a better world ! " 

Balzac's account is obviously tinged with literary 
exaggeration, though the stories of La Palferine were 
no doubt gleaned among the gossips of the boulevard. 
He shall be balanced by an adverse witness, one M. 
Challamel, who, after a severe attack of le mal roman- 
iique which caused him to run away from his father's 
shop, settled down to be a staid librarian. In his 
" Souvenirs d'un Hugolatre " he says : 

" In the wake of the freelances of the pen the 
Bohemians abounded, affecting the profoundest disdain 
for all that the bourgeois call ' rules of conduct,' posing 
as successors to Francois Villon, playing the part of 
literary art-students, frequenters of cabarets, often of 
disreputable houses, breaking with the usages of polite 
society, and believing, in fine, that everything is 
permitted to people of intelligence. . . . By the side 
of these sham romantic Byrons there existed some good 
fellows who fell into the excess of the literary revolution, 
and who paraded the active immorality of debauch. 
Sceptics, materialists, loaded with debt, they raised 

114 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

poverty to a system and laughed at their voluntary 
insolvency. Some shook off early their Diogenes' 
cloak . . . others succumbed prematurely ... all had 
imitators who ended by forming numerous groups and 
by founding a school. The spirit of Bohemia became 
infectious, and engendered the spirit of mockery {la 
blague).'''' 

I conclude this general testimony with some lines 
from Alfred de Musset's " Dupont et Durand," which is 
an imaginary conversation between two old school- 
fellows, one of whom has become a prosperous citizen, 
the other has failed as a Bohemian. The Bohemian 
says : 

J'aifldni dans les rues, 
J'ai marchS devant moi, bay ant aux grues ; 
Mai nourri, peu vetu, couchant dans un grenier, 
Dontje ddminageais dh qiCilfallait 'payer ; 
De taudis en taudis colportant ma misere, 
Ruminant de Fourier le reve humanitaire, 
Empruntant gd et la le plus que je pouvais, 
Depensant un Sou sitot que je Vavais, 
DSlayant de grands mots en phrases insipides, 
Sans chemise et sans bas, et les poches si vides, 
QuHl n'est que mon esprit au monde d'aussi creux, 
Telje vicus, rdpi, sycophante, envieux. 

With the aid of these lights we may descry some 
general features of the Romantic Bohemian. He must 
be young ; on this both Roqueplan and Balzac are 

115 



VIE DE BOHEME 



agreed, placing his proper age between twenty and 
thirty. The Bohemians of 1830 were, as a matter of 
fact, nearer to the earlier than the later limit. Most of 
them were born at the end of the first decade of the 
nineteenth century, so that 1830 found them in, or not 
long past, their twentieth year, a happy state of things 
which Arsene Houssaye celebrated in his poem " Vingt 
Ans." We Englishmen can hardly understand the 
magic of this joyous phrase, vingt ans ; through French 
prose and poetry it sounds again and again like a 
tinkling silver bell calling those who have lived and loved 
in youth to hark back for a moment in passionate 
regret, in an ecstasy of remembrance. To think of 
Bohemia without that silver tinkle in one's ears is to 
do it a grave injustice, for Bohemia throbbed with 
it then as with a tocsin, as with a summoning bell to a 
joyous refectory in some transcendant Abbaye de 
Theleme. It may be well for us that at twenty we are 
still hobbledehoys whom serious persons are only too 
glad to get rid of for half the year in universities as 
peacefully unmoved by our turmoil as their Gothic 
buildings by the storms of winter ; but these frenzied 
medievalists had no Gothic university to be engulfed in 
save their own dear Paris, at a time when the university 
of their own dear Paris was trying its hardest to with- 
stand the new ideas with which they were aflame. If 
juvenile excesses and absurdities can be tolerated with 
easy smiles at Oxford and Cambridge, how much more 

116 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

can those of the Romantic Bohemia be excused when its 
denizens were Frenchmen, hardly more than schoolboys, 
yet already victorious as champions of a revolution, 
with their livelihood to gain, with no kind parents to 
pay their bills and no kind Dean to regulate their 
mischief ! As the college porter says, " Young gentle- 
men will be young gentlemen," a proverb which 
condones the excesses of tender, as it reprobates those 
of riper, years. Bohemia, in Roqueplan's words, must 
be continually renewed, for the old Bohemian is nothing 
but a legitimate object for ardent social reformers. 
So the Bohemians of 1830, some of whom made their 
names, while others remained obscure, were all youthful 
nobodies in the eyes of the world, perching in their 
attics like a colony of singing birds upon the topmost 
branches. 

This youth of theirs, once it is properly grasped, 
explains a good many of their qualities, amiable and 
otherwise. Poverty, for instance, was a tradition of 
Bohemia. "They dine rarely," "the Bohemian has 
nothing and lives on what he has," " they raised their 
poverty into a system and laughed at their voluntary 
insolvency " : so say Roqueplan, Balzac, and Chal- 
lamel. Most young men in this world are poor, in the 
sense they have nothing of their own. So long as they 
follow the careers laid down for them, or earn the 
prescribed salaries in the prescribed professions, they 
are not without means indeed, but if they take a 

117 



VIE DE BOHEME 



contradictory line of their own which is not lucrative, 
especially if they dare to set up as poets, it is considered 
better for them to knock their heads against the hard 
corners of life without much extraneous assistance. 
On the whole this is a wise point of view, and one can 
hardly follow some of the less talented Romantics in 
making it an indictment against society that superior 
soup-kitchens are not provided for the sustenance of 
all who choose to embrace the arts. There were, of 
course, degrees of poverty in Bohemia, just as there 
were degrees of economic adaptability. Some were 
really, others only comparatively, destitute : some 
girded their loins daily in search of pence, others waited 
for pence to drop from heaven. Still, in spite of all 
degrees and differences, poverty was very real. The 
market for art and letters was still extremely restricted, 
processes were costly, the science of distribution still 
in its infancy ; a few celebrities took all the cream of 
the demand, leaving only the thinnest trickle to satisfy 
the rest. 

The Bohemians knew, or very soon found out, 
their prospects. Those who were not scared back 
to their homes made up their minds that at best a 
moderate income might be theirs in the future, while 
the present entailed considerable privations to be 
endured cheerfully for the glory of art. Poverty being 
their economic condition, it is not to be supposed that 
the young men who did happen to be rich in theh* own 

118 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

right migrated to Bohemia for the mere pleasure of its 
society. It is easy enough to find food for laughter 
in unavoidable discomforts and delight in the make- 
shifts by which misery is cheated, but, when neither 
discomfort nor makeshifts are necessary, the point of 
view inevitably changes, and irritation takes the place 
of laughter. It is quite contrary to human nature that 
a man with money to spare for regular meals, decent 
clothes, and a comfortable room should enjoy hunger, 
rags, and a bare garret. Between adversity cheerfully 
borne and a masquerade of scanty means there is a gulf 
which no imagination is able to span. A rich man, 
I admit, may stint himself in order to spend all his 
means on a hobby or a philanthropic object, but in the 
Bohemian there was no trace of this voluntary asceti- 
cism, which would have been entirely contrary to the 
Romantic creed. A rich Bohemian was a paradox, for 
the moment a Bohemian had any money he spent it 
in forgetting the sorrows of Bohemia, a moral pointed 
by Murger's amusing chapter " Les Flots du Pactole," 
where Rodolphe, having received a gift of £20, promptly 
agrees with Marcel to live a regular life. He will work, 
he says, seriously, sheltered from the material worries 
of life. " I renounce Bohemia, I shall dress like the 
rest, I shall have a black coat and appear in drawing- 
rooms." Unfortunately the preliminaries are so costly 
that the sum is exhausted in a fortnight, the coup de 
grace being given to it when the new servant pays 

119 



VIE DE BOHEME 



without authorization the arrears of rent. " Where 
shall we dine to-night ? " says Rodolphe, once more 
a Bohemian. " We shall know to-morrow," replies 
Marcel. Rodolphe and Marcel, and their predecessors 
just as much, would have regarded a Bohemian with an 
income as a madman or a monstrosity. With all the 
will in the world such a man would have found it im- 
possible to live in such a society without being on its 
economic level. Its joys and pleasures would not have 
been his, its amusements would have seemed paltry. To 
have shown his money would have made him shunned by 
the proud and courted by the sycophants, in any case 
a stranger. He could only have been a Bohemian at 
the price of dissipating all his capital, and that he could 
more easily do among the viveurs upon the boulevard. 

Bohemia, then, was poor, which had the one excellent 
result of banishing from it all mercenary spirit. When 
there was so little money to be had in any case and 
there were so many other more glorious things to think 
about, there was no point in financial preoccupations. 
If one had a few coins one spent them in common with 
those who had none ; if one's pockets were empty one 
went without and accepted the hospitality of others. 
Money-grubbing was left to the virtuous bourgeois 
beloved of a bourgeois king, to unscrupulous Nucingens 
and adventurous de Girardins. And Bohemia never 
went to bed, because it was young and poor, not from 
viciousness or an artistic pleasure in the sunrise. They 

120 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

were incorrigible talkers, those young men — perhaps 
this was one of their graver faults — ^they not only talked, 
but they shouted for hours together, mixing declama- 
tions of Victor Hugo with extravagant tirades in the 
Romantic fashion. It was not in them to disperse 
quietly after "Hernani" or "Antony" had lashed 
them into fury. They had a plethora of matter 
to discharge from their souls, but they had no com- 
fortable little Chelsea studio in which to perform this 
function. A cold attic, a straw mattress, a fuelless 
stove, a dearth of chairs, which was all the majority 
could boast of, was a poor setting for impassioned 
conversation compared with the warmth of even a 
humble cabaret. The good M. Challamel, of course, is 
justified in his strictures. Their morals were lax, they 
were extravagant, they did not pay their bills. This 
was partly due to what a humorous undergraduate once 
called the " generosity of youth," and partly to the 
example of the " swells " upon the boulevard. The 
Bohemian naturally yearned to enjoy himself, with his 
acute capacity for enjoyment, as he saw his more 
fortunate fellow-men enjoying themselves. They were 
luxurious at all times ; it was impossible for him to 
restrain occasionally the impulse to luxury, indulging 
in a superb orgy at the Rocher de Caucale or the Trois 
Freres Proven9aux, ordering clothes which he meant to 
pay for, and forgetting all the while the just claims of a 
landlord. His vices, at any rate, were inseparable from 

121 



VIE DE BOHEME 



the conditions of his existence, and if he was disreput- 
able, it was more outwardly than within. 

The talents of Bohemia were as diverse as the physi- 
ognomies of its citizens. Genius, it might be said with 
truth, was not more common there than in other walks 
of life. Real genius is a law and a life to itself ; it is 
no more Bohemian than it is aristocratic, democratic, 
liberal or conservative. Social labels imply classes to 
bear them, and classes imply a common factor of in- 
telligence. Genius, being an uncommon factor, is 
always severely individual. Moreover, so far as 
Bohemia is concerned, genius, being one kind of wealth, 
unsuited its possessor for Bohemian citizenship as much 
as a comfortable income. The trivialities and futilities 
of some, the extravagant idleness of others, would have 
estranged genius or forced it to pretend an acquiescence 
in much that was repugnant to its nature. With the 
possible exception of Gautier, the Bohemia of 1830 
could really claim none of the greatest names of 
Romanticism. Victor Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, and the 
other divinities of its worship were, apart from all 
further possibilities, too old. Balzac was a far too 
busy man to pay it more than momentary visits ; 
Berlioz, before he went to Rome, was too occupied in 
writing music which irritated Cherubini ; Delacroix, the 
acknowledged king of Romantic painters, is revealed in 
his letters as the austerest of hard workers, scarcely 
leaving his studio but for a walk when the shadows 

122 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

began to fall. Yet, if Bohemia was denied genius, it 
was not denied a very high average of ability, which was 
enhanced by its burning and disinterested enthusiasm 
for art. Like all other societies, it had its fools, its 
knaves, its dunces, and its awkward squad. The 
Romantic revolution had attracted many scatter- 
brained fanatics to Paris, with as little artistic aptitude 
as good sense in their heads. Out of those who survived 
the first disappointments were fashioned failures like 
Alfred de Musset's unfortunate in the verses quoted pre- 
viously, "rape, sycophante, envieux." Probably, too, 
an impartial observer, listening to the nocturnal con- 
versations of a Bohemian group, would often have found 
the ecstatic admiration of the listeners disproportionate 
to the turgid periods of the speaker, for to every real 
artist in Bohemia there was a wind-bag or two. Never- 
theless there was a good deal of truth in Balzac's 
eulogy. Bohemia numbered within its gates a good 
proportion of the best among the younger generation. 
They were indeed an " immense force," which might 
have been better utilized. Every kind of talent was 
represented there abundantly, because the field of 
letters seemed to be the only battlefield then left open 
to willing and eager soldiers. This very fact gave the 
Romantic Bohemia its imperishable distinction, for 
after 1848, when young blood again found other outlets, 
what had been a little world was left no more than a 
decadent province. 

123 



VIE DE BOHEME 



The republic of Bohemia in general had all the 
follies and virtues, the amiability and brutality of 
youth. It was generous, noisy, more often hungry 
than drunk, often on the verge of despair, and 
always fantastically clothed. It sprang up in Paris 
as rapidly as the iron shanties of a Canadian township 
round a proposed extension of the railway. The 
settlers, self-assured, fervid, rise on a tide of increasing 
prosperity till some supreme moment when their venture, 
its markets humming, its saloons crowded, its new town 
hall nearly built, seems the very embodiment of all 
their hopes. But if the railway, after all, take another 
route, the glory gradually dwindles, the workers throw 
down the tools, and the host of speculators melts away, 
till only that population is left which the soil will 
actually support, and what was for a day a city resumes 
the existence of an ordinary village. Bohemia's history 
is of a less commercial texture, but of a like pattern, 
as I have already said. Its rise was swift, it had a 
brilliant apogee, its decline was gradual. In a 
posthumous poem by Philothee O 'Neddy, whose place 
in the chronicles of Bohemia will be duly recorded, 
it is said : 

II est depuis longtemps avSre que nous sommes, 
Dans le siecle, six milles jeunes hommes 
Qui du demon de VArt nous croyant iourmentes, 
Depensons noire vie en excentricites ; 
124 



LA BOHEME ROMANTIQUE 

Qui, du fatal Byron copiant des allures, 

De solennels manteaux drapons nos encolures. 

These six thousand copies of the "Fatal Byron," if 
they ever existed, have, for the most part, died without 
leaving their names to posterity. The historian can 
deal only with a few individuals, who embodied the 
salient qualities of Bohemia. 



125 



VII 

THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

" People always forget," said Theophile Gautier in 
his old age, " that we were the first Schaunards and 
Collines, a quarter of a century before Murger. Only," 
he added with a smile, " we had talent and did not 
write invertebrate verses like those of that feeble 
appendage to Alfred de Musset." This saying, reported 
by his son-in-law, was made on a festive occasion, so 
that it is unnecessary to regard with concern the 
discrepancy between this view of Murger and the one 
which Gautier has expressed in print. That kindest- 
hearted of writers would never wittingly have hurt the 
reputation or memory of the humblest among his 
fellows, and I only quote the passage because, when the 
malice is discounted as largely as the " quarter of a 
century," it remains a true reference to the origins of 
Bohemia by one who was, so to speak, one of its pilgrim 
fathers. The first Schaunards and Collines, Rodolphes 
and Marcels, the unknown poets and artists who first 
raised the standard of common enthusiasm against 
a common enemy, the bourgeois, were the young and 
lusty friends of a young and lusty Gautier. They were 
members of a cinacle, albeit a less beatific cinacle 

126 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

than the brotherhood drawn in Balzac's " Illusions 
Perdues." In the cenacle of the Rue des Quatre 
Vents he evolved by sheer imagination a compensat- 
ing mirage of virtue to be contrasted with all the 
real depravity of society which his eye so unerringly 
saw, just as Eugenie Grandet shines out impossibly 
beside her miserly father, and Madame Firmiani in 
the corrupt circle of his femmes du monde. Neverthe- 
less there is a certain sublimity in the cenacle to which 
attention cannot be denied. It was Balzac's picture 
of an ideal Bohemia in which alone such a nature as his 
could have found a home. It is of little moment that 
he dates the action of " Illusions Perdues " a few years 
before 1830, for the cenacle itself is a timeless creation, 
only limited by the fact that one of its members 
died in the insurrection of 1832. The young men 
who composed the cenacle bore upon their brow 
the "seal of special genius." Daniel d'Arthez, upon 
whom since the death of their leader, the great mystic, 
Louis Lambert, the mantle had fallen, was a monarchist 
of noble family, destined to become the greatest writer 
of the future ; Horace Bianchon, the flower of doctors, 
a materialist of perfect charity and profound science ; 
Leon Giraud, a humanitarian philosopher ; Joseph 
Bridau, a great painter with " the line of Rome and the 
colour of Venice " ; Fulgence Ridal, a sceptic, a cynic, 
and the wittiest playwright of his time ; Meyraux, a 
scientist ; and Michel Chrestien, a red republican who 

12T 



VIE DE BOHEME 



was killed in the Cloitre Saint-Merri. They were not 
ascetics by profession : d'Arthez, for instance, was the 
last lover of the Diane, the Princesse de Cadignan, in 
the days of his later glory ; Bridau's art was affected by 
his love affairs ; Chrestien was " plein d'illusions et 
d'amour." They were like the " saints " of the early 
Christian Church, each going his own way, but true 
helpers one of another, true champions and honest 
critics. They were without vanity or envy, having a 
profound esteem for one another, with a consciousness 
of their own worth. " Their great external misery and 
the splendour of their intellectual wealth produced a 
singular contrast. In their society nobody thought of 
the realities of life except as subjects for friendly 
pleasantries. . . . The sufferings of poverty, when 
they made themselves felt, were so gaily borne, accepted 
with such ardour by all, that they did nothing to alter 
the particular serenity which marks the faces of young 
men free from grave faults, who have not lost part of 
themselves in any of those low trafiickings which are 
forced upon men by poverty ill supported, by the 
desire to get on without any choice of means, and 
by the facile complacency with which men of letters 
welcome or pardon betrayals. . . . These young men 
were sure of themselves : the enemy of one became 
the enemy of all, and they would have abandoned their 
most urgent interests to obey the sacred solidarity of 
their hearts. All incapable of a mean action, they 

128 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

could oppose a formidable ' no ' to every accusation, 
and defend one another with security. Equally high- 
minded and equally matched in matters of sensibility, 
they could think and speak all their mind in the 
domain of science and intelligence ; thence came the 
innocence of their intercourse, the gaiety of their talk. 
Sure of mutual understanding, their minds digressed 
at their ease ; and they stood on no ceremony among 
themselves, confided in each other their sorrows and 
their joys, pondered and suffered with open hearts." 
I need speak no further of this imaginary cenacle, for 
" Illusions Perdues " is widely known. It is one of those 
wonderful fantasies that one feels were lovingly cherished 
by Balzac, at once his darling dreams and his disappoint- 
ments. He had a passionate desire to express the 
beautiful, and he was denied that gift. The lights 
dance before his eyes, and his very language becomes 
confused and turgid when he deserts reality. It may 
safely be said that in the real Boheme there was no such 
goodly company of industrious, gifted, morally austere, 
intellectually gay, unselfish young men, and that there 
never will be in any society till the coming of the 
Coquecigrues. 

The Bohemia of artistic tradition began in what 
Theophile Gautier named the " second cinacleJ^ The 
first cinacle, as all the world knows, was that of Victor 
Hugo, Sainte-Beuve, and the brothers Deschamps, who 
met regularly at the cabaret of M^re Saguet on Mont- 

129 I 



VIE DE BOHEME 



parnasse in the days when Hugo was still hatching the 
plot of the literary revolution. To trace to them the 
origins of Bohemia would be an error, for they never 
had any part or lot in Bohemianism. They were 
young, it is true, and depended upon their art for a 
living, but the fact that they were nothing but a small 
coterie of earnest poets, more akin to the band of 
d'Arthez than the friends of Rodolphe, depends upon 
two things, their time and their outlook. The first 
cinacle came into existence about 1822, when the throne 
of the Bourbons seemed solid and royalism went hand 
in hand with classicism. No standard of insurrection, 
civic or literary, had yet been raised ; the victory was 
yet to come, and it would have been madness, before 
the campaign was fully planned or the army gathered, 
for the chiefs to have aped the style of victors. The 
merciless ridicule of Paris would have killed them in a 
week, without support as they were. Defiance of the 
bourgeois, an absolute essential of the true Bohemian 
creed, was, therefore, not appropriate to the first 
cenacle, who lived openly the life of ordinary, decent 
citizens, while secretly preparing the proclamations, 
the standards, and the weapons by which the cataclysmic 
victory of 1830 was to be won. In such a tense moment 
Bohemia could not be born. Their outlook, in the 
second place, was too lofty to comprehend the lower 
planes in which Bohemia made itself conspicuous. 
To strike a more human note in poetry was their chief 

130 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

aim : they were concerned with art rather than with 
hfe itself ; and though Hugo, in the privacy of his room, 
doffed with rehef that bourgeois symbol, the high linen 
collar, he was like a general in his tent drawing up 
that transcendental plan of operations, the preface to 
"Cromwell," which was to inspire his troops in their 
pioneering and shooting, in their whole bodily attack 
on the classic tradition. As the classic tradition was 
embodied not only in literature, in contemporary 
journalism, in professional lectures, but in the social 
life of all staid citizens as well, the Romantic troops, 
passionate and fundamental as their literary en- 
thusiasm was, were forced to make social life the field 
of their assault, all the more because, being poor, young, 
and unknown, they were unable to inflict such palpable 
wounds with pen or brush as they could by making 
a violent protest in every detail of the ordinary way 
of living. By outraging the accepted standards of 
decency in dress, in speech, and in demeanour, they 
made their presence daily felt, and where their 
presence was felt their ideals were made ostensible. 
Their tactics, after the event, may be blamed, the 
effect they produced was, no doubt, smaller than they 
imagined, but the fact remains that la vie de Boheme 
began neither as a retreat for higher souls nor as a 
means for reckless self-indulgence, but as a definite 
method of drawing attention to a new and important 
artistic creed. For the greater exponents of this creed, 

131 



VIE DE BOHEME 



a Hugo or a Delacroix, such a material protest would 
have been out of place ; it would have detracted even 
from the effect produced by their great works of art. 
Only the rank and file, to whom supreme personal 
achievement was impossible, collected and commonly 
inspired, as I have already pointed out, under special 
historical and social conditions, were justified in adopting 
the measures that were best suited to their purpose. 
Their purpose was as temporary as their conditions ; 
their device, epater le bourgeois, has now become a 
hollow phrase, but it meant then the rousing of every 
shopkeeper, every gargon de cafe, as well as the cultured 
reader of current literature, to the sense that art was 
alive again. This was the aim of the second cenacle, 
the first Bohemians. They were successful, and they 
were necessary. 

The second cenacle was not a formal organization, 
so that no definite date can be fixed for its institution. 
Its members probably came together in the same 
haphazard way as the small bands of friends at a public 
school or university, crystallizing so imperceptibly that 
the moment of incorporation baffles memory, and often 
so firmly that death alone is their solvent. Theophile 
Gautier, in his fragmentary " Histoire du Romantisme," 
has given the fullest details of the cenacWs existence, 
yet neither he nor his biographer, Maxime du Camp, 
make it clear whether it was formed prior or posterior 
to the famous first night of "Hernani " in February of 

132 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

1830. Gautier, no doubt, had forgotten, but it seems 
fairly safe to assume that if prehminary acquaintance 
was already made between some of its members before 
that time, the stormy nights of February strengthened 
the bond and made the association compact. The 
story of "Hernani," with the red waistcoat, vieil as de 
pique, and other trimmings, has so often been told, even 
in English, that it may seem unnecessary to traverse 
such well-trodden ground ; but a historian has no 
business to take anything for granted, so that "Hernani " 
can be no more justly omitted here than Waterloo from 
any work upon Napoleon. It was part of Victor Hugo's 
agreement with the Theatre Fran9ais that a number 
of seats should be at his disposal each night, and that 
the holders of the tickets should be admitted some time 
before the ordinary public. These were the trenches 
into which his army of young men were thrown. Minor 
officers were entrusted with the task of bringing the 
men to the rendezvous, Jules Vabre, an architect, 
being responsible for a hundred and fifty men, and 
Celestin Nauteuil for almost as large a number. 
Gerard de Nerval, whose translation of Goethe's 
" Faust," published in 1828 (when he was only nineteen), 
had brought him considerable fame in Romantic circles, 
had known Gautier, who was two years his junior, at 
the College Charlemagne. This amiable essayist, whom 
Gautier likened more than once to a swallow, flitting 
always in and out among his friends, was not forgetful 

133 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of his young friend in the days of recruiting. Gautier 
was at that time studying painting in the studio of 
Rioult, whither Gerard de Nerval made one day a 
swallow-Hke dart and produced six tickets marked with 
the single but thrilling word Hierro, the Spanish for 
"" iron." According to Maxime du Camp he gave these 
to Gautier with the words : 

" Tu reponds de tes hommes ? " 

To him replied Gautier : " Par le crane dans lequel 
Byron buvait k I'Abbaye de Newstead, j'en reponds. 
N'est-ce pas, vous autres ? " 

" Mort aux perruques 1 " resounded in answer through 
the studio, and Gerard flitted away content. 

Gautier, who was a little better provided with worldly 
goods than some of the Romantic army, then set about 
devising a costume that should strike death into the 
heart of the perruques. With extreme care he cut out 
a pattern of a medieval pourpoint — a buttonless waist- 
coat coming right up to the collar-bone, and fastening 
with laces behind like the uniform of Saint-Simon's 
disciples, which symbolized mutual assistance, because no 
Saint-Simonian could truss his own points. His Gascon 
tailor's professional objections were overruled, even 
though the material chosen was a gorgeous silk coloured 
a Chinese vermilion, and the garment was made as 
desired : to it were added a pair of light greenish-grey 
trousers with a broad stripe of black down each seam, 
a black coat with ample revers of velvet, and a flowing 

134 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

cravat. It was indeed a devastating sight, and one that 
deservedly became famous. In this fervent spirit was 
the battle waged over " Hernani " ; for thirty consecutive 
performances the trenches were manfully filled and a 
fusillade of cheers poured forth at every touch of 
romantic colour, every bold enjambement, every defiance 
of classic circumlocution, and, above all, every sign of 
disapprobation on the part of those they rudely styled 
" wigs " and " bald pates." The battlefield was often 
a pandemonium, but the result was victory. The 
Theatre Franyais, the very home of Moliere, was success- 
fully carried by the Romantic assault. Gautier had 
magnificently won his spurs, and shortly afterwards he 
was introduced by Gerard de Nerval and Petrus Borel 
to the great hero himself, an ordeal which caused him 
so much trepidation that he sat for over an hour on the 
stairs with his two sponsors before he could pluck up 
courage to proceed. His fears, however, soon vanished 
after a cordial reception, and as his parents were then 
living next door to Hugo in the splendid old Place 
Royale, he soon became the most constant page and 
attendant of the poet, for whom he preserved a lifelong 
devotion. 

These were the days of the second cenacle, for 
** Hernani " was the Hegira of la vie de Boheme. During the 
long waits in the empty theatre, the passionate mornings 
of preparation, the fiery reunions after the curtain had 
fallen, a set of the most ardent Hugo -worshippers had 

135 



VIE DE BOHEME 



found their affinities. They did not indeed live together 
— some were dutifully under the parental roof, some 
had hardly a roof to their heads, one at least was 
supporting a mother and sister by daily work in a 
government office — but they formed the habit of meeting 
and spending many hours of the day and night together 
and the meeting-place was either the studio of a young 
sculptor, Jehan du Seigneur, or the sanded parlour of 
the Petit Moulin Rouge, in the rond-point of the Arc 
de Triomphe. Their names were P^trus Borel, Joseph 
Bouchardy, Philothee O 'Neddy, Alphonse Brot, Au- 
gustus Mackeat, Jules Vabre, Napoleon Thom, Jehan 
du Seigneur, Leon Clopet, Celestin Nauteuil, Theophile 
Gautier, and Gerard de Nerval. It is almost needless 
to say that some of the names are Gothic transforma- 
tions in the Romantic fashion. Petrus Borel was, of 
course, christened Pierre, as du Seigneur was christened 
Jean by his parents ; while Philothee O 'Neddy and 
Augustus Mackeat conceal the persons of Theophile 
Dondey and August e Maquet. But names in -us or 
Celtic patronymics were all the rage, and even Gautier 
was called Albertus after his poem of that name 
published in 1832. A curious feature about the group 
was that, though it existed to champion the cause of 
Romantic poetry, the only pure man of letters was 
Gerard de Nerval. Of the rest, Borel, formerly an 
architect, was learning to draw in Deveria's studio, 
Thom and Nauteuil were artists, Gautier and Bouchardy 

136 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

studying art, du Seigneur a sculptor, Clopet and Vabre 
architects ; O 'Neddy and Brot, indeed, were professed 
poets, but in no less an embryonic stage than some of 
the others who afterwards found in the pen their most 
successful tool. " This mixture of art in poetry," says 
Gautier, " was and has remained one of the characteristic 
signs of the new school, and makes it clear why the first 
adepts were recruited rather among the artists than 
among the men of letters. A multitude of objects, 
images, and comparisons which were thought to be 
irreducible to the written word were introduced into 
the language and have stayed there." * 

The one whom Gautier called the individualite 
pivotale of the group, though Philoth6e O'Neddy in after 
years denied that he had more influence than Gautier, 
Gerard, or Bouchardy, was Petrus Borel, Le Lycanthrope 
as he subsequently named himself. His full name was 
Pierre Borel d'Hauterive, and he was born in Lyons in 
1809. His father, captured by the revolutionaries in 
1792 and then liberated, fled to Switzerland, whence 
he returned to Paris, a ruined man, to earn what he 
could by keeping a shop. At the age of fifteen Pierre 
was apprenticed to an architect, and in 1829 he set up 
on his own account without much success. He and 
Jules Vabre became associated, and so poor were they 
that they used to use the cellars of the houses on which 
they were engaged as their dwelling-place. Gautier 
* " Histoire du Romantisme." 
137 



VIE DE BOHEME 



recalled visiting them once in the cellar of a house in the 
Rue Fontaine-du-Roi, where they were preparing their 
frugal meal of potatoes baked in the ashes. " Ah," 
said Vabre with pride, " but we have salt on Sundays." 
Borel's ideas were too Gothically fantastic for his 
bourgeois clients, and, after a violent dispute over his 
fourth commission, he ordered the half -finished building 
to be demolished, and gave up for ever an ungrateful 
profession,* betaking himself for a season to the study 
of painting, and writing the while those poems animated 
by a haughty bitterness which were published under 
the title of "Rhapsodies." They are dedicated and 
addressed to the members of the second cenacle, among 
whom he enjoyed an enormous reputation. He was for 
them the poet of the future, before whom Hugo would 
crumble to dust. Alas ! for youthful predictions ; thu-ty 
years later Gautier, the most loyal of Romantics, was 
forced to exclaim: "Dire que j'ai cru a Petrus ! " f 
He exercised over the group, in fact, a kind of un- 
conscious hypnotism. His slightly superior age, his 
strange, rough, paradoxical eloquence, and, above all, 
his picturesque appearance imposed on them all. Their 
ideal was to have an allure fatale, a sombre complexion 
and haughty, Byronic mien. Borel realized it. He 
looked like a Castilian nobleman out of a Velasquez 
picture, says Gautier, with his " young and serious face, 

* Jules Clare tie : " Petrus Borel." 
t Maxime du Camp : " Theophile Gautier." 
138 




Petrus Borel 



THE SECOND ''CENACLE" 

of perfect regularity, an olive skin gilded with light 
shades of amber, lit up by great, shining eyes, sad as 
those of Abencerrages thinking of Granada," his bright 
red lip which shone under his moustache, " one spark 
of life in that mask of Oriental immobility," and his 
fine, full, silky beard perfumed and tended like that 
of a sultan, at a time when to wear a beard in Paris 
was an outrage to public decency. He was clothed in 
black, wearing a high Robespierre waistcoat and 
draping a long black cloak around him with an air of 
studied mystery. How could the younger men, whose 
beards refused to grow, not believe in such a perfect 
symbol, so magnificently scornful, so profoundly fatal ? 
He was the most republican, too, of them all, the 
typical Bousingot of the bourgeois Press, though fanatical 
republicanism was not, as Philothee O'Neddy after- 
wards protested in a letter to Charles Asselineau, their 
representative opinion. Gerard had no political opinions 
at all, Gautier was obstinately J eune-France, and the 
others only dreamt of a social Utopia in which aestheti- 
cism should replace religion, or of some humanitarian 
millennium after the manner of Saint-Simon and 
Fourier. Borel, however, held society in complete 
disgust, as he showed when he left the gathering at 
Jehan du Seigneur's, and proceeded one summer to live 
with some followers on the slopes of Montmartre, all naked 
as savages, till the landlord drove them out at the price 
of his porter's lodge, which they burnt down in revenge. 

139 



VIE DE BOHEME 



None of the others were quite so remarkably in- 
dividual as Petrus Borel, whose character may be 
described as Jules Claretie describes his book of 
extravagant stories, " Champa vert " : " doubt, negation, 
bitterness, anger, something at the same time furious 
and comic." Vabre, his partner in architecture, had 
fair hair and moustaches, without any extravagance 
in his bearing, but his face twinkled all over with 
malice and his conversation was madly Rabelaisian. 
He projected a famous book that was never written, 
" Sur rincommodite des Commodes." An intense 
love for Shakespeare was his chief Romantic asset. 
According to Gautier he gave up his later life to studying 
our language in England that he might make the 
perfect translation, a task which was never completed. 
Joseph Bouchardy, who afterwards became a very 
successful writer of melodrama, was then learning 
engraving. He, too, was dark, so dark that with the 
soft, sparse beard that just fringed his face he looked 
an Indian, and was nicknamed the Maharajah of 
Lahore. He was less poetry-mad than the rest, but 
eternally occupied with dramatic scenarios in which 
all the secret passages, trap-doors, and sliding panels 
of a novel by Mrs. Radcliffe were brought into play. 
Jehan du Seigneur, who made medallions of all his 
friends, was a gentle, modest youth with a very pink- 
and- white complexion which was his everlasting despair. 
To atone for this unavoidable defection from Romantic 

140 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

ideals, he wore a black velvet pourpoint, a black jacket 
with broad velvet revers, and a voluminous necktie, so 
that not a speck of white linen was shown, a " supreme 
elegance romantique," as Gautier remarks. Augustus 
Mackeat was chiefly conspicuous for the happy trans- 
formation of his name, though he returned to the 
orthodox Maquet when he became a successful play- 
wright. His disguise, however, was nothing to the 
tremendous anagram which turned Theophile Dondey 
into Philothee O 'Neddy. He, says Gautier, was dark 
as a mulatto with fair, curly hair. Though he was 
helping to support a mother and sister by working in a 
government office, this Philistine occupation did not 
prevent him from being one of the most frenzied of the 
gang, a "paroxyst" ruisselant dHnouisme, In 1833 he 
published a collection of ultra-romantic poems called 
" Feu et Flamme," which reek with passion, despair, 
scorn, suicide, and contempt for Christianity. Yet he 
lived till 1872, and though he published nothing more, 
he left a collection of posthumous poems all of which 
breathe an extreme melancholy. In the letter written 
to Asselineau ten years before his death he admitted 
that in the days of the cenacle he had " une bonne 
grosse somme d'extravagance et de mauvais gout," 
but protested warmly against the application to them 
of the epithet " ridiculous." " Risible " they might 
have been, but only the bourgeois were " ridiculous." 
C^lestin Nauteuil was big, fair, gentle, and so perfectly 

141 



VIE DE BOHEME 



medieval that Gautier caricatured him as EHe Wild- 
mannstadius, the hero of one of his Jeune-France 
stories, who hved in a Gothic manor on medieval fare, 
read nothing but medieval illuminated manuscripts, 
and was killed when the Gothic cathedral, his sole 
external joy, was struck by lightning. Gautier describes 
him personally as having the appearance of " one of 
those long angels bearing censers or playing sambucs 
that live in the gables of cathedrals, who has come 
down into the city in the midst of the busy burgesses, 
keeping his nimbus all the while at the back of his head 
like a hat, but without the least suspicion that it is not 
natural to wear one's aureole in the street." He was a 
furious Hernanist in 1830 (he was then only seventeen), 
and called " the Captain," for leading the army to the 
fray. In 1843, when he was asked to bring three 
hundred young men to support " Les Burgraves " in the 
same manner, he sadly said : " Tell the master there are 
no more young men." He might, says Maxime du 
Camp, have been a great painter, but he was compelled 
to live by illustrating. Whenever he had made a little 
money in this way he returned to his colours and his 
easel till it was exhausted. He ended in the obscurity 
of Dijon, becoming the director of its school of art. 

Maxime du Camp compares Nauteuil's fate to that 
of Gautier, who was forced by circumstances to waste 
so much of his talent in mere journalism ; but in 1830 
Gautier, a young man of nineteen, who made long hair 

142 




Celestin Nanteuil 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

serve instead of a beard, was still free as air. In that 
year he brought out a little volume of poems, and a 
year or two later produced the fantastic "Albertus," 
which he followed with " Les Jeune -France." His art 
studies had soon ceased because he discovered that he 
suffered from short sight, and we may regard him in the 
days of the cenacle as a poet pure and simple. One 
figure remains to be filled in, the most pathetic of all 
the Romantic band, Gerard de Nerval. He was born 
in 1808, the son of a Doctor Labrunie — the family 
name of de Nerval was only assumed by him when he 
began to write. His youth was spent in the pleasant 
country of the Valois, and he received a very careful 
education from his father, who taught him not only 
Latin and Greek, but German, Italian, and the rudiments 
of Arabic and Persian. Even in his early days he was 
an eager reader of mystics and utopists, which gave 
that first fantastical turn to his brain which ended later 
in complete madness. His development was normal 
at first. At the College Charlemagne he was the 
snapper-up of every prize, and produced some quite 
worthless poetry in praise of Napoleon that won high 
approval from his professors. He followed this by a 
satire on the Academy, which appeared in 1826, and in 
1828 he produced an ode to Beranger of a style to which 
his Romantic friends could only have applied the new 
epithet poncif. The translation of "Faust," which 
earned a very high compliment from the great Goethe 

143 



VIE DE BOHEME 



himself, turned him into his appropriate path and gave 
him a serious Hterary reputation which he never lost. 
He translated other fragments of German poetry, and 
wrote for the Mercure de France, of which Pierre Laeroix, 
the " Bibliophile Jacob," was then the editor. His 
adoption of a literary career was a grave disappointment 
to his father, who had hoped to make a good official of 
him, and it is probable that parental coldness first 
caused him to find a congenial asylum in the new 
Bohemia, of which he was never a typical inhabitant. 
When he came of age he inherited his mother's dowry, 
which made the actual earning of money immaterial to 
him. His success with " Faust " had brought him into 
touch with Hugo, so that after the days of "Hernani " 
he held in the cenacle the most distinguished, if not 
the most influential, position as a lieutenant of their 
demi-god, with notable achievements in the field of 
letters already to his credit. 

Gerard threw in his lot with the cenacle, but, though 
he even wrote some revolutionary poems in 1830, for 
which he was imprisoned in Sainte Pelagic, he was 
never quite at ease with Borel and the jBowsmgoi faction. 
The flamboyant side of Romanticism and its noisy 
gatherings had little appeal for him. He was an 
eccentric and a solitary by nature, as his writings, with 
their strong reminiscence of Heine, show. In the time 
of the cinacle he was, according to Gautier, a gentle and 
modest young man, who blushed like a girl, with a pink- 

144 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

and-white complexion and soft, grey eyes. Under his 
fine, light golden hair his forehead, beautifully shaped, 
shone like polished ivory. He was usually dressed 
in a black frock-coat with enormous pockets, in which, 
like Murger's Colline, he buried a whole library of books 
picked up on the quais, five or six notebooks, and a 
large collection of scraps of paper on which he wrote 
down the ideas that occmTcd to him on his long walks. 
He was the perfect peripatetic : as he once said, he 
would have liked to walk through life unrolling an 
endless roll of paper on which he could jot his reflec- 
tions. He lived at this time with Camille Rogier, the 
artist, in the Rue des Beaux Arts, but his friends could 
never be sure where to find him. For him no hour was 
sacred to rest. He wandered about Paris at all times 
of the day and night, dropping in on a friend for an 
hour or two, ready to ride a hobby-horse with him in 
any direction, then darting off again, his thoughts in 
the clouds, nolDody knew whither, and returning in the 
small hours, only to flit from his bed at the dawn. Of 
all the gay companions of Bohemia he was the best 
loved, for his childlike simplicity and his gentle manners 
won all hearts. He went through life to his terrible 
death with complete unworldliness, almost like a ghost, 
unconscious of the material side of existence, directing 
his feet only by the light of his spirit. Gautier, writing 
after his death, protested vehemently that his was no 
ordinary tragedy of neglected genius ; he had money 

145 K 



VIE DE BOHEME 



enough, but money was nothing to him, so he spent it 
without a thought ; his work was always accepted by 
editors, and his plays, though not successful, were all 
produced. But success was the last of his preoccupa- 
tions. He was a wanderer living in a world of his own 
fantasies. As he will appear again in these pages, we 
may bid him farewell for the moment, with the con- 
viction that it would be pleasant to be transported for 
a season back to that turbulent vie de Boheme if only to 
find the kindly Gerard's arm passed through one's own 
and to hear his gentle murmur : " Tu as une fantaisie ; 
je la promenerai avec toi." 

I ought, perhaps, to apologize for allowing the persons 
of the cenacle to take up so much space before coming 
to their life, yet I imagine, on the whole, that I have 
said too little rather than too much. To go back to a 
past of which one has no experience is a matter of such 
extreme difficulty that a historian must often despair 
at the impossibility of reproducing the whole congeries 
of scattered detail from which alone his own mental 
picture could have taken shape. The first Bohemia, 
that of the second cenacle, was less a common life 
than a common recreation. It was an incomplete 
vie de Boheme in so far as its members were united, 
not by a desire to share all the joys and difficulties 
of life, but by a particular artistic enthusiasm. There 
is no record that any of them worked or dwelt 
together, that they took part in joint expeditions of 

146 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

amusement, or that the mutual acquaintance of those 
female divinities for whom they pUed so " fatally " 
their emotional bellows is to be presumed — and these 
are marked characteristics of Murger's vie de Boheme. 
When they ate together it was at the obscure cabaret 
kept by the Neapolitan Graziano for the needs of his 
compatriots who worked in Paris. Here, in a plain 
whitewashed room with a sanded floor, a dresser 
covered with violently coloured faience and plain 
wooden benches, they were initiated by their host — 
a man of senatorial presence, with an immense but 
perfectly correct nose and big black beard, who seemed 
to dream all the while of his beloved Italy — into the 
delights of spaghetti, stufato, tagliarini, and gnocchi. 
They were delicious meals, seasoned with good spirits, 
and — to use the delightful French phrase — " bedewed " 
with sound wine of Argenteuil or Suresnes christened 
magnificently with the names of the most exclusive 
vineyards in Medoc or Burgundy. Still, they were felt 
at times to be a trifle wanting in Romantic glamour. 
It was all very well, the grumblers remarked, to be 
enjoying incomparable macaroni, but when all was 
said and done there was little that an impartial observer 
could descry in these banquets to differentiate them 
from the prosaic meals of a Joseph Prudhomme. 
Something was wanting, some tincture of the Newstead 
spirit, some infernal joy in the food, some shudder in 
the drinking. The macaroni remained obstinately 

147 



VIE DE BOHEME 



matter-of-fact, but a brilliant idea was mooted that 
would give a charnel flavour to the wine. Graziano's 
glasses were only glasses of quite modern exiguousness ; 
the true brotherhood should drink out of a skull. A 
skull was accordingly procured by Gerard from his 
father, the doctor, and ingeniously mounted by Gautier, 
who screwed to its side an old brass handle from a 
chest of drawers. In truth it was a noble bowl, and the 
pious company drank from it with bravado, each 
concealing with more or less ill-success his natural 
repugnance. Familiarity, however, bred contempt, till 
one uncompromising youth surprised his companions 
by noisily commanding the waiter to fill with sea-water. 

" Why sea-water ? " exclaimed a simple soul. 

"Why sea-water! Because the master in 'Hans 
d'Islande ' says ' he drank the water of the sea from 
the skulls of the dead.' It is my desire to do the 
same." 

Yes, the Petit Moulin Rouge, for all its good cheer 
and its death's-head mounted with a drawer -handle, 
was too workaday for these eclectics. They reached 
their true glory only in the gatherings which took place 
in Jehan du Seigneur's studio. It was a room over a 
little fruiterer's shop that the cenacle sanctified as their 
conventicle. "In a little chamber," wrote an older 
Gautier, " which had not seats enough for all its occu- 
pants, gathered the young men, really young and 
different in that respect from the young men of to-day, 

148 



THE SECOND "CENACLE 



who are all more or less quinquagenarians. The 
hammock in which the master of the dwelling took his 
siesta, the narrow couchlet in which the dawn often 
surprised him at the last page of a book of verses, eked 
out the insufficiency of conveniences for conversation. 
One really talked better standing up, and the gestures 
of the orator or declaimer only gained a more ample 
scope. Still, it was extremely unwise to make too free 
with your arms for fear of knocking your knuckles 
against the sloping ceiling." It was a poor man's 
room, but not without ornament, for it contained 
sketches by the two Deverias, a head after Titian or 
Giorgione by Boulanger, two earthenware vases full of 
flowers on the chimneypiece, the inevitable death's- 
head instead of a clock, a looking-glass, and a small 
shelf of books. On either side of the glass and in the 
embrasures of the windows were hung the portrait 
medallions which Jehan made of his friends. They 
had no money to get them cast in bronze, so the world 
has lost in them a valuable appendix to the well-known 
busts of his contemporaries executed by the more 
distinguished Romantic sculptor, David d' Angers. Here 
they would all gather of an evening : Gerard if he 
happened to be passing in his amiable wanderings, 
Bouchardy the Maharajah, Gautier — not yet the bm'ly 
critic of La Presse, but a thin youth of nineteen — 
Nauteuil with his Gothic nimbus, Vabre bursting with 
some new joke, Borel swinging off his long cloak with a 

149 



VIE DE BOHEME 



scowl, O 'Neddy shedding Dondey in the street, Maekeat 
and the rest, each bursting with eloquence or roaring 
the " Chasse du Burgrave " at the top of his voice. 
When Maxime du Camp once asked Gautier what they 
talked about, he answered : " About everything, but 
I haven't the least idea what they said, because every- 
body talked at once." However, a very good idea of a 
typical evening in the cenacle is given in Philothee 
O'Neddy's " Feu et Flamme," the first poem in which, 
called " Pandaemonium," is a gorgeous description of 
their cave of harmony. It is freely decorated with 
" local colour," which on a Romantic's lips meant the 
borrowing of all he could carry away from the medieval 
stage-property room, but it was drawn from life with 
all seriousness and sincerity. The poem opens by 
depicting them all seated round the punch-bowl — ^punch, 
it must be stated, was the only really respectable 
drink for a thorough-paced Romantic. He mixed it in 
a large bowl and set light to the fumes, as the students 
are supposed to do in the first act of the " Contes d'Hoff- 
mann," and derived enormous satisfaction from sitting 
in an obscurity only lit by this bluish flame. Thus 
to recall the witches' cauldron and the fires of the Inferno 
had an unfailing success as a stimulant to eloquence. 
The scene, then, opens thus powerfully : 

Au centre de la salle, autour d'une urne en fer, 
Digne emule en largeur des coupes d^enfer, 
150 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

Dans laquelle un beau punch, aux prismatiques fiammes, 

Semhle un lac sulfureux qui fait hauler ses lames, 

Vingt jeunes hommes, tous artistes dans le coeur, 

La pipe ou le cigar e aux levres, Vceil moqueur, 

Le temporal orne du bonnet de Phrygie, 

En barbe Jeune-France, en costume d'orgie, 

Sont pachalesquement jetes sur un amas 

De coussins dont maint siecle a troue le damas, 

Et le sombre atelier n'a point d'eclairage 

Que la gerbe du punch, spiritueux mirage. 

Smoking, it would be well to add, was considered part 
of the whole duty of a Romantic man. The cigar, 
being Byronic, was affected by the " fatally " inclined ; 
the pipe came, not from England, but from Germany ; 
it was Faust-like, Hoffmannesque ; it was also Flemish, 
of course, and the Flemish painters, like Steen and 
Teniers, were in high repute. A pipe signified a more 
jolly potatory spirit than a cigar, but it was always 
possible for the irreconcilable satanics to regard the 
breathing out of smoke from either as symbolically 
demoniac. The cigarette was not despised, but its 
popularity was due also to its picturesque associations. 
Spain was the home of the cigarette, the papelito as 
Borel and his friends fondly called it. When they rolled 
their fragrant Maryland lovingly in the papel they 
assumed a Spanish allure, Granada rose before their 
eyes, and invisible guitars played " Avez-vous vu dans 

151 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Barcelone ? " However, cigarettes would have been out 
of place in the prismatic flames of the punch-bowl. 
Their Spanish nonchalance suited better the light of 
day : evening shadows were consecrated to gloom 
and frenzy, Northern spirits. Hence it is not surprising 
to hear that all the company had 

De haine virulente et de pitiS morose 
Contre la bourgeoisie et le Code et la prose ; 
Des cosurs ne depensant leur exultation 
Que pour deux verites, Vart et la passion ! 

The conversation is compared with some aptitude to a 
Spanish town devastated by an earthquake, which 
confounds in one ruin palaces and huts, churches and 
houses of ill-fame. So in their talk the ideal and the 
grotesque, poetry and cynical jesting are confounded 
pell-mell. Silence is made while a passage from Victor 
Hugo is declaimed, after which four discourses are 
pronounced. Three are by Borel, Clopet, and Bouchardy 
respectively, concealed in the names of Reblo, Noel, 
and Don Jose, and the second discourse is delivered 
by the swarthy O 'Neddy himself, who, 

Faisant osciller son regard de maudit 
Sur le conventicule, 

pours out a passionate complaint that poets have too 
long been under the yoke of governments and codes of 

152 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 



law. The evening closes with a violent tumult. The 
punch has done its work, and the cinacle is a-screaming 
with the ecstasy of energumens. 

Ce fut un long chaos de jurons, de boutades, 
De hurrahs, de tolles et de rhodomontades. 

They danced and sang like the demon crew in the 
master's " Ronde du Sabbat," 

Etjusques au matin les damnes Jeune-Frances 
Nagerent dans un flux dHndicibles dimences. 

It is to be hoped that the worthy fruiterer was sleeping 
quietly in another part of Paris, and only the potatoes 
were kept awake and sleep banished from the pears. 

If at this point our reader feels inclined to throw up 
his hands and exclaim " How disgusting ! " he will be 
well advised to put down the book. One cannot 
approach Bohemia without a certain sympathy for 
youthful excesses, howsoever opposed they may be to 
one's personal predilections. If the cenacle indulged 
in occasional orgies — which, even allowing a good deal 
for " local colour " in O'Neddy's " Pandaemonium," 
they certainly did — they had a great many compensating 
virtues, such as complete disinterestedness and a con- 
suming love of art, which were not conspicuous in Paris 
at the time. Maxime du Camp in his memoir on Gautier 
sets the extreme limit to which reasonable criticism 

153 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of them can go when, after remarking on the promise 
given by a violent youth for a fruitful middle age, he 
says : 

" From that should we conclude that the young men 
who composed the cenacle were all destined to become 
great men ? Certainly not ; there were among them 
dreamers with illusions about themselves, sterile dupes 
of the comedy that they played, failures in whose case 
the brilliant future which they promised themselves 
fell naturally into obscurity. To more than one of 
them the saying of Rivarol could have been applied : 
' It is a terrible advantage never to have done anything, 
but it should not be abused.' In short, only one of 
them has made a name that will not perish : Theophile 
Gautier. Gerard de Nerval, by whom he had been 
distanced at the beginning of his life, never passed a 
very moderate level, did not push his way in the crowd, 
and came early to grief. On the other hand, most of 
them were celebrated in the group, I might say in the 
coterie, to which they belonged, but their reputation 
never went beyond the circle in which they lived." 

Maxime du Camp takes a very superior point of 
view which is less than just. The members of the 
cenacle, it may be admitted, overrated one another's 
talents and were ready, in some instances, to take 
posturing for performance ; but Bohemia is not to 
be blamed because all her children were not great men 
any more than Eton because all her alumni are not 
scholars. As a matter of fact, in this first Bohemia of 

154 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

the cinacle there were very few of whom it could be said 
that their lives were ruined. Gerard died a violent death, 
but he was afflicted with mental disease. Apart from 
his eccentricity he was a scholar and a gentleman 
whose attainments equalled those of Gautier himself, 
though he could not bring himself to exploit them. 
Petrus Borel was the one real failure, the poseur who 
inevitably came to grief. His Bohemian career reached 
its apogee at his masked ball in 1832 — a caricature 
of Dumas' own famous ball — held at his lodgings in the 
Rue d'Enfer, an appropriate address. He left Paris 
shortly afterwards, and, after earning for some years a 
precarious livelihood and publishing " Madame Puti- 
phar," he became an inspector of Mostaganem, in Algeria, 
in which country he died wretchedly. The rest, 
though they did not quite achieve their proud dreams, 
continued, most of them, in the paths of art with 
rectitude and some success, Bouchardy and Maquet as 
dramatists, du Seigneur as a sculptor, Nauteuil as an 
artist. O 'Neddy, once the cenacle dissolved, as it did 
towards 1833, found poetry a resource in solitude, and 
poor Vabre, if he made no figure in the world, at least 
set himself the highest of ideals in devoting his life to 
the study of Shakespeare. 

The first Bohemia, for what that is worth, was 
singularly respectable in its results. Even had they 
been far worse, sufficient praise to stifle carping would 
be found in the indelibly beautiful memory which it 

155 



VIE DE BOHEME 



left on the minds of its members. In 1857 Bouchardy 
wrote of it to Gautier in these words : 

" It was a holy and beautiful comradeship, my dear 
Th^o, in which each was the loving brother, the devoted 
friend, the fellow-traveller who makes his friend forget 
the length and the fatigue of the road. It was a more 
beautiful comradeship than one can say, in which all 
wished the success of all without insensate exaggeration 
and without collective vanity, in which each of us 
offered to lend his shoulder to the foot of him who 
wished to climb and to reach his goal. ... It was 
a happy time, dear Theophile, of which we ought to be 
proud, for when one has traversed this life so often 
saddened by so much bitterness, we ought to be proud 
of having found in it some hours of joy, we ought to 
boast of having been happy ! " 

Even Maxime du Camp admits that the effect of 
the cinacle on Gautier was incalculable : its disinterested 
friendship and its enthusiasm made his individuality. 
All his life he remained " the mystic companion of 
Victor Hugo's first disciples." Weighed down in after 
years by the irksome tasks of journalism, the slave who 
remembered his years of freedom with regret, he 
responded to Bouchardy with tender melancholy from 
beside the rivers of Babylon : 

" No doubt such joy could not last. To be young 
and intelligent, to love one another, to understand 
and commune in every realm of art — a more beautiful 
manner of life could not be conceived, and from the 

156 



THE SECOND "CENACLE" 

eyes of all those who followed it its dazzling splendour 
has never been obliterated." 

At another time he wrote to Sainte-Beuve : " Nous 
etions ivres du beau, nous avons eu la sublime folie de 
I'art." 

These words, issuing from a soul ever animated 
during its days on earth by a Bohemian spirit, cast a 
protecting spell round the memory of the first Bohemian 
brotherhood through which no Philistine anathemas 
can break. 



157 



VIII 

LA BOHEME GALANTE 

O le beau temps passe ! Nous avians la science, 
La science de vivre avec insouciance ; 
La gaiete rayonnait en nos esprits moqueurs, 
Et r Amour ecrivait des livres dans nos coeurs ! 

Arsene Houssaye 

The cenacle broke up towards 1833 and its members 
scattered. All Bohemian coteries must be short-lived, 
but this one was specially doomed to a quick dissolution. 
It was, I will not say too romantic, but too romantically 
ritualistic, too much concerned with the vestments and 
incense and celebrations incident to the profession of 
" Hugolatry." It is not hard to imagine how the too 
mystic significance given to its gatherings, its feasts, 
and even its individual actions became to some of the 
brethren, now that Romanticism was firmly established, 
either unreal or merely tiresome : divergences of taste 
and opinion began to creep in till, in the end, this 
attempted Bohemia became a deserted shrine. But 
the Bohemian spirit could not thus be quenched ; 
indeed, it was only then fully kindled. The deacons 
and acolytes, whom the mere symbolism had mainly 
attracted, were gone ; paid off the Swiss Guard whom 

158 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

the return of peace called back to civil life. Those who 
remained, the most advanced of the initiated, saw that 
the time had come for the casting away of symbols and 
the cessation of noisy worship. Bohemia had originated 
in a literary creed, but in its consummation it was 
to pass beyond the letter and take hold of human 
life. This consummation came with extraordinary 
rapidity ; there were no feeble tentatives, no half- 
successes. A new community arose in Paris, almost out 
of the ashes of the cenacle, vastly different though it 
was from the obscure group in Jehan du Seigneur's 
humble studio. It was animated by all that was best 
in Romanticism — its disregard for academic convention, 
its colour, its joyousness, its warmth of feeling, and its 
sympathy with all human passions ; but, unlike the 
cenacle, it did not trammel itself with Romantic con- 
vention, it set creation above imitation, and — ^greatest 
of all differences — it was no society meeting at intervals 
for spiritual and corporeal refreshment, but a genuine 
life in common lived just for the sake of living by a 
set of high-spirited, joyous young men, most of them 
true artists, neither maniacs, nor ne'er-do-weels, nor 
idlers. The cenacle was dead, but la vie de Boheme was 
born, and its golden age came first. The brotherhood 
of the Impasse du Doyenne was, in A. Delvau's words, 
" une Boheme doree, avec laquelle celle de Schaunard 
n'a que des rapports tres eloignes." * Delvau, who 
* "Gerard de Nerval." 
159 



VIE DE BOHEME 



was of Murger's generation, knew well how quickly 
the glory departed. Yet at least Murger's Bohemians 
had this connexion with what Gerard de Nerval named 
la Boheme galante that they could look back to it 
as the Romans to the reign of Saturn. It was con- 
stituted informally, even fortuitously ; it existed 
without self-advertisement, but it remained, in the 
phrase of another French writer, " la patrie de toutes 
les Bohemes litt6raires." 

In 1832 another Bohemian of the golden age had 
come to Paris, a brave and merry soul called Arsene 
Houssaye, who had only breathed this terrestrial 
atmosphere for seventeen years. It was not to 
champion a cause that he came, but he was called 
thither by the poet within him to take his part in 
infusing a new vitality into life and letters. Like 
Gautier, he was a natural enfant de Boheme, yet did not 
at first find the brotherhood which he was to hymn 
in prose and verse ; it was still only a potentiality. 
For a few months he lived in an odd little Bohemia 
of his own with a friend called Van dell Hell in a hotel 
garni. They wrote songs for a living, wore the red 
hats by which the more violent students of the Quartier 
Latin proclaimed their republicanism, and consoled 
themselves for the rebuffs of editors with the smiles 
of a certain " Nini yeux noirs." Houssaye in those 
amusing volumes which he called " Les Confessions " 
bears witness to the deplorable state of the literary 

160 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

market at the time. Novels and plays could not be 
sold, poetry was not wanted as a gift, and the news- 
papers regarded mere men of letters as too frivolous 
for employment. Poverty among the struggling writers 
was acute, but nobody cared a fig about money when 
all cared so much about art — a merciful dispensation of 
Providence. Yet, if commercialism did not affect art, 
the same can hardly be said of politics. Far too many 
of the young poets and artists, who would have scorned 
to drive a mercenary bargain at the expense of their 
art, exulted in defiling their artistic convictions with 
the reddest and most insensate republicanism, not 
seeing that if art does not need to regard gold pieces, 
neither does it need to trouble itself whether a king's 
head or a cap of liberty is their stamp. Arsene 
Houssaye, careless wretch, nearly missed the glory of 
Bohemia entirely by mixing himself up in the insurrec- 
tion of the Cloitre Saint-Merri. He was arrested, but 
a friendly commissary of police saved him from trial 
and imprisonment by sending him home to his wealthy, 
loyal, and scandalized family. The ungrateful lad, 
instead of settling down to some solid profession, simply 
bided his time till the distm-bance was over, and returned 
to Paris, only so far profiting by his warning that 
he left politics henceforth to look after themselves. 
Houssaye 's father, worthy man, felt that money would 
be thrown away on such a ruffian, so Arsene was left 
to his own resources, which, if they were meagre in 



VIE DE BOHEME 



early days, kept him alive for another sixty-three 
years. 

Bohemia was not to be baulked a second time. The 
elements were present, and all that remained to do 
was for somebody to give them a slight push, such as 
Lucretius gave to his atoms. The push occurred at 
the Salon of 1833, if Houssaye is to be believed — a 
condition not inevitably fulfilled. There, one fine day, 
he met Theophile Gautier and Nestor Roqueplan, the 
former of whom was certainly a stranger to him. A 
genial conversation on the merits of the pictures ensued, 
in which Ars^ne Houssaye made, as he was destined to 
do, a very good impression upon his senior. Gautier 
was not a man to leave hazard any further part after 
such a promising beginning, and he accordingly proffered 
an invitation to dejeuner next day in the words : 
" Je te surinvite a venir dejeuner invraisemblablement 
demain chez les auteurs de mes jours." Houssaye 
turned up next day at No. 8 Place Royale, where 
the irrepressible Theo introduced his father as " le 
respectable bonhomme qui me donna I'etre." The 
other guest at this dSjeuner was Gerard de Nerval, 
whom with true instinct Gautier had brought to test 
and to embrace the newly found brother. The wit and 
gaiety, the range and the emphasis of their post- 
prandial conversation can be imagined. At last Theo 
blurted out frankly : " Tu sais que je ne te connais pas : 
dis-moi huit vers de toi, je le dirai qui tu es." It was not 

162 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

a test which the future author of "VingtAns" feared. 
Gautier found himself able to give an enthusiastic 
account of the new brother ; the two truest Bohemians 
in Paris were at once bosom friends, and the most 
wayward of geniuses was a friend of both. 

So far the credit had been with Gautier, but Bohemia 
was still without a dwelling-place, and in this matter 
Gerard de Nerval deserved pious mention in the 
Bohemian bidding prayer, for it was owing to him that 
la Boheme galante found a home suitable to the golden 
age, a unique setting which posterity could remember 
but never reproduce.' It was a rare opportunity, and 
it might almost be supposed that fortune, approving 
of Theo's first amiable push, advanced willingly another 
step, making peripatetic Gerard her tool. In the 
course of his wanderings he had become acquainted 
with one of the most singular regions in all Paris, no 
sign of which remains to-day. Hardly a visitor to 
Paris omits a look into the Louvre, but very few know 
that as they walk from the statue of Gambetta to the 
entrance of the galleries they are crossing the site that 
Bohemia in its florescence made memorable. On that 
spot there stood in 1833 part of an older Paris, which 
in intention had long been cleared away, but in fact 
remained another twenty years. Those who have read 
Balzac's " Cousine Bette " have made its acquaintance, 
though I should wager that the majority of them have 
taken it for granted with other of Balzac's topographical 

163 



VIE DE BOHEME 



details. Let me recall to them the sinister quarter 
where Cousine Bette, at the opening of the story, 
cherishes the young sculptor Steinbock and makes the 
acquaintance of the infamous Monsieur and Madame 
Marneffe. With his practised touch for tragic effect 
Balzac describes it thus : 

" The existence of the block of houses which runs 
alongside of the old Louvre is one of those protests 
which the French people like to make against good 
sense, so that Europe may be reassured as to the grain 
of intelligence accorded them and may fear them no 
more. . . . Anybody who comes towards the Rue de 
la Musee from the wicket leading to the Pont du 
Carrousel . . . may notice some half-score of houses 
with ruined fayades, which the discouraged owners 
never repair, and which are the residue of an ancient 
quarter in course of demolition ever since Napoleon 
resolved to complete the Louvre. The Rue and 
Impasse de Doyenne are the only streets within this 
sombre, deserted block, the inhabitants of which are 
probably phantoms, for one never sees a soul there. . . . 
These houses, buried already by the raising of the Place 
[du Carrousel], are enveloped in the eternal shadow 
projected by the high galleries of the Louvre, which 
are blackened on this side by the north wind. The 
darkness, the silence, the chilly air, the cavernous depth 
of the ground combine to make these houses kinds of 
crypts, living tombs. When one passes in a cabriolet 
along this dead half-quarter, and one's look penetrates 
the little alley de Doyenne, a chill strikes one's soul, 
and one wonders who can live there and what must 

164 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

happen there in the evening when that alley changes 
into a den of cut -throats, and the vices of Paris, wrapped 
in the mantle of night, flourish at their height." 

This can hardly be called an engaging description, 
and even Bohemians, it might be supposed, would 
shrink from such a dreadful slum. But Balzac was 
writing in 1847, more than ten years after Bohemia 
had left it, and he was making a protest against the 
continued existence of this quarter, which had probably 
deteriorated since the days when he sent there himself 
to offer Gautier work on the Chronique de Paris. 
However, whether Balzac was right in making the 
Rue du Doyenne an inferno or was only touching it up 
with livid tones appropriate to Cousine Bette and the 
Marneffes, it was certainly a more smiling spot in 1833. 
True, it was tumbling down, and lay below the level of 
the Place du Carrousel, in the midst of mournful debris, 
between the Louvre and the Tuileries, which Napoleon 
had meant to join after sweeping it away ; the houses, 
as Gautier says,* were old and dark, repairs to them 
were forbidden, and they had the air of regretting the 
days when respectable canons and advocates were 
their inhabitants. Yet it was not a den of thieves by 
any means. Gerard f records that many attaches and 
Government officials lived in the quarter, and that by the 

* "Portraits contemporains." The article on the artist Marilhat. 
t "La Boheme Galante." 

165 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Place du Carrousel there was a collection of temporary 
wooden shops let out to curiosity dealers and print- 
sellers. It was enlivened, too, by the presence of a 
little Dutch beer -house served by a Flemish maid of 
considerable attractions. The view from the upper 
windows included, naturally, the heaps of stones, the 
rubbish, with the nettles and the dock-leaves by which 
Nature tries to cover such deformities at once ; but 
it also included a good many trees, and the ruins of a 
delightful old priory, with one arch, two or three pillars, 
and the end of a colonnade still standing. This was 
the Priory of Doyenne, the dome of which, according 
to Gerard, fell one day in the seventeenth century 
upon eleven luckless canons who were celebrating the 
office. Its ruins stood out gracefully against the 
trees, and of a summer morning or evening, when, 
amid the peaceful silence of this forgotten corner, the 
bright rays of the Parisian sun lit up the lichen on its 
stones and a fresh breeze from the neighbouring Seine 
gently swayed the branches of its framing trees, it 
must have been well to be a-leaning out of a window. 

However, Gerard de Nerval did more than find a 
quiet, romantic corner hidden away in the busy heart 
of Paris with a ruined priory to give distinction to its 
prospect ; he also found an appropriate dwelling. In 
one of the old houses of the Impasse du Doyenne there 
was a set of rooms remarkable for its salon. It was 
a huge room, decorated in the old-fashioned Pompadour 

166 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

style with grooved panellings, pier-glasses, and a fan- 
tastically moulded ceiling. This decoration had for 
a long time been the despair of its owner and had driven 
away all prospective tenants, the taste for cm'iosities 
being at that time mideveloped. In vain had the 
landlord parcelled it out with party walls ; it was still 
mouldering on his hands when Gerard came thither on 
one of his swallow-flights. He at once persuaded the 
good-natured Camille Rogier to transfer his household 
gods from the Rue des Beaux- Arts, the party walls were 
knocked down, and Bohemia entered on its ideal home. 
Gerard had still some of his patrimony left, and chose 
to expend it upon his one hobby, the collection of 
pictures and furniture. It was a golden time for the 
collector. Society had as yet not learned to appreciate 
old works of art, dealers were not too well informed, 
and the depredations of the Bande Noire, that, under the 
Restoration, had sacked so many ancient ecclesiastical 
foundations, had brought a large quantity of precious 
old furniture, tapestries, and fabrics into the curiosity 
shops of Paris. Gerard had acquired a wonderful 
canopied Renaissance bed ornamented with salamanders, 
a Medicis console, a sideboard decorated with nymphs 
and satyrs, three of each, and oval paintings on its 
doors, a tapestry delineating the four seasons, some 
medieval chairs and Gothic stools, a Ribeira — a death 
of Saint Joseph — and two superb panels by Fragonard, 
" L'Escarpolette " and " Colin Maillard," which last he 

167 



VIE DE BOHEME 



had bought for fifty francs the pair. It was a magnifi- 
cent studio, worthy of la Boheme galante. There was 
no question of bare attics on a sixth story, their tiny 
windows looking on a dreary sea of roofs, of rickety 
chairs and peeling wall-paper. In spite of its bare 
floors, its faded colours, its chipped corners, and the 
incongruous presence of plain easels among its ancient 
splendours, its riches were princely. Bohemian disorder 
might reign among paints and palette-knives, ends of 
paper inscribed with scraps of verse might dot its 
unswept floor, the debris of eating and drinking might 
litter th« seats on which fastidious cavaliers once 
delicately sat, but no realities of a careless existence 
could spoil its romantic atmosphere. Without its 
merry clan of inhabitants, no doubt, it would have 
seemed odd and ghostly ; yet if they brought back to 
it the necessary colour of youth, it tinged, in turn, their 
life with a patina of old gold that never faded from 
their reminiscences. 

Camille Rogier was the real lessee, and Gerard his 
sub -tenant. Gautier had a couple of rooms in the 
Rue du Doyenne, which cut the Impasse crosswise. 
These at first were the only permanent inhabitants of 
the new colony, but the great salon where Rogier and 
Gautier worked soon became a meeting-place for a 
number of friends. Work was stopped at five o'clock, 
when Arsene Houssaye was certain to appear, Roger 
de Beauvoir, then in his most brilliant day, half 

168 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

Bohemian, half viveur, and Edmond OurHac, the 
future dramatist. One evening Houssaye, Roger de 
Beauvoir, and Ourliac stayed talking till dawn ; Roger 
departed then to his more sumptuous apartments, 
Ourliac to his parents' house in the Rue Saint Roch, 
but Arsene Houssaye stayed, on Rogier's invitation, to 
complete the inner conclave of Bohemia. His camp-bed 
was sent for next day, and he became Rogier's second 
tenant, paying him indeed no money, but spending, 
in revenge, chance gifts from home on luxurious feasts 
at the Freres Provengaux. 

Such a society in such a setting could not long remain 
unknown. With its circle of guests widening it grew 
in importance, for in this golden age Bohemia could 
be important without losing its quality. Gavarni, the 
inimitable portrayer of Parisian types, Nauteuil, 
Chatillon, Marilhat, even Delacroix, were among the 
artists who found the gaiety of the Impasse du Doyenne 
to their taste ; Petrus Borel looked haggardly in occa- 
sionally ; the great Dumas would rush in and out like a 
storm ; the Roqueplans, Camille and Nestor, showed 
there in moments spared from their more elegant 
wanderings ; and the effervescent Roger de Beauvoir 
as gaily composed there his witty rhymes as at a supper 
in the Cafe de Paris. It was no hole-and-corner 
Bohemia at which the superior person could affect to 
turn up his nose ; it was a truly artistic centre in Paris 
and, at the same time, a coterie admission to which was 

169 



VIE DE BOH E ME 



jealously enough guarded to exclude the half-baked 
dilettante who is the ruin of most artistic sets and 
the very negation of Bohemia. For a reason which 
will be obvious in the sequel, ladies with leanings to 
artistic society — another impossibility in Bohemia — were 
equally debarred from appearing. It was a more or 
less closely knit society of young and gifted men, lovers 
of the beautiful, despisers of convention without 
gasconnade, neither rich nor desperately poor, avid 
of pleasure, and fashioning their conduct easily upon 
the standards of the day, yet crowning all their hours, 
even the most wanton, with a graceful and light-hearted 
idealism that shields these pagan heroes of a golden age 
from any but an aesthetic judgment, a judgment which, 
in the case of their own countrymen, they confronted 
with serene self-confidence. 

In all, the group was fairly large : its membership 
radiated dimly as far as the " dandies " on the boulevard 
and into the obscurer depths of the Quartier Latin. 
But radiation was from a central nucleus — the original 
Bohemian brethren whose home was in the Impasse 
du Doyenne : Camille Rogier, Gerard de Nerval, 
Theophile Gautier, Arsene Houssaye, and Edmond 
Ourliac. The rest were visitors, but they alone were 
the true dwellers in la Boheme galante. Of their 
brotherhood and its life Gautier, Gerard, and Houssaye 
have all given glimpses, which compose a picture 
apt for pleasing and, occasionally, envious contempla- 

170 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 



tion. Ars^ne Houssaye in his " Confessions " is the 
fullest source of reminiscence, and his words are delight- 
fully illustrated by the poem, originally entitled 
" Vingt Ans," but in his complete works " La Boheme 
de Doyenne." The poem, addressed to Gautier, begins : 

Theo, te souviens-tu de ces vertes saisons 
Qui s'effeuillaient si vite en ces vieilles maisons 
Dont le front s^abritait sous une aile du Louvre ? 
Levons avec Rogier le voile qui les couvre, 
Beprenons dans nos coeurs les tresors enfouis, 
Plongeons dans le passe nos regards eblouis. 

Chimeres aux oils noirs, EspSrances fanees, 
Amis toujours chantants, Amantes profanees, 
Songes venus du del, flottantes Visions, 
Sortez de vos tombeaux, jeunes Illusions ! 
Et nous rebdtirons ce chateau perissable 
Que les destins changeants ont jetS sur le sable : 

Replagons le sofa sous les tableaux flamands ; 
Dispersons a nos pieds gazettes et romans ; 
Ornons le vieux bahut de vieilles porcelaines, 
Etfaisons refleurir roses et marjolaines ; 
Qu'un rideau de damas ombrage encore ces lits 
Ou nos jeunes amours se sont ensevelis. 

Gautier, Gerard, and Houssaye have already been 
introduced, but a word must be said of the other two. 

171 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Camille Rogier, who was as old as Gerard, was in 
Houssaye's opinion the most charming man in the 
world. Already an artist of some repute, he alone of 
the brotherhood was earning a living by his art — even 
more than a living, for was he not rich enough to buy 
riding -boots and wear coats of pink velvet ? It was 
his departure for Constantinople in 1836, where he 
remained eight years painting the Eastern scenes which 
won him his chief fame, that caused the disruption of 
this Bohemian colony. Besides his mastery of the 
brush he was a very agreeable singer of chansons and 
ballads. Ourliac did not live in the Impasse du 
Doyenne, but with his parents in the Rue Saint Roch, 
and filled a small post in the office of the " Enfants 
Trouves " which brought him £48 a year. But he 
never failed to call on his way to work in the morning, 
to recount a merry story, and on his way home he stayed 
with them many an hour. He, who in Houssaye's lines, 

gai convive, arrivait en chantant 
Ces chansons de Bagdad que Beauvoir aimait tant, 

was the merriest of all the band, its Moliere, says 
Houssaye elsewhere, ever sparkling with wit, an in- 
exhaustible raconteur of inimitable dramatic power. 
He was a poet, too, a great student of German philo- 
sophy, and was at the time working upon " Suzanne," 
the first work which made his name heard in the world 
of literature. 

172 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

It was a jolly life in the Impasse, though money was 
plentiful but rarely, and fortune had still to be wooed. 
They rose early in the morning, even after a bacchic 
evening, and when Theo joined them all four would 
set to their work, while the Pompadour salon was 
hardly yet awake in the morning sun, each singing the 
air which the new day found lingering in his head. Theo 
always painted or drew before he began to write, but 
his serious task was the composition of "Mademoiselle 
de Maupin," that masterpiece which was completed, 
sold for a beggarly £60, and published in the joyous 
days of Doyenne. Rogier was illustrating Hoffmann's 
"Tales" and Houssaye writing "La Pecheresse." 

" L'un ecrivait au coin du feu, I'autre rimait dans un 
hamac ; Th6o, tout en caressant les chats, calli- 
graphiait d'admirables chapitres, couche sur le ventre ; 
Gerard, toujours insaisissable, allait et venait avec la 
vague inquietude des chercheurs qui ne trouvent 
pas."* 

Gerard, his part in the foundation of la Boheme 
galante performed, felt under no compulsion to 
confine himself to the nest. His companions, indeed, 
saw little of his amiable countenance, for he wandered 
ceaselessly, often only returning when the night sky 
grew pale, to leave before it was fairly blue. He had 
a task, nevertheless, and that task was connected with 
his great romance. It is a story as pathetic as Charles 

* Ars^ne Houssaye: "Les Confessions." 
173 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Lamb's second love affair, and the woman who won 
his heart was also an actress. In the days of the 
cinacle Gerard had fallen desperately in love with 
Jenny Colon, of the Op6ra Comique, an actress of not 
more than ordinary talent. It was a passion that went 
to the very roots of his being, an infatuation enriched 
by all his romantic mysticism. She was the goddess 
who ruled his dreams by night and day, and it was for 
her in anticipation that Gerard purchased his wonder- 
ful Renaissance bed with its salamanders and carved 
pillars. No room that Gerard ever possessed was large 
enough to hold this bed, which was always lodged with 
his friends, first in the Impasse, and then in other parts 
of Paris. They respected his frenzy, for the bed never 
had an occupant, and they kept it sacred till its deluded 
owner was obliged by straitened circumstances to part 
with it. Gerard's bed was the epitome of his life — a 
search for a phantom that his brain itself had fashioned. 
His Jenny Colon was a phantom, but the real Jenny, 
though her vulgar heart was unmoved by a shy poet's 
awkward homage, was not unwilling to accept his 
services. Commenting himself, in "La Boheme 
Galante," on Ars^ne Houssaye's stanza : 

" D'ou vous vient, 6 Girard ! cet air acadSmique ? 
Est-ce que les beaux yeux de VOpira Comique 
S^allumeraient ailleurs ? ha reine de Saba, 
Qui du roi Salomon entre vos bras tomba, 
174 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

Ne serait-elle plus qu'une vaine chimere ? " * 
Et Gerard repondait : " Que la femme amere ! ' ' 

wrote : 

" La reine de Saba, c'etait bien elle, en effet, qui 
me preoccupait alors — et doublement. Le fantome 
eclatant de la fille des Hemiarites tourmentait mes 
nuits sous les hautes colonnes de ce grand lit sculpte, 
achete en Touraine, et qui n'etait pas encore garni de 
sa brocatelle rouge a ramages. Les salamandres de 
Frangois V^ me versaient leur flamme du haut des 
corniches, oh se jouaient des amours imprudents. . . . 
Qu'elle etait belle ! non pas plus belle cependant 
qu'une autre reine du matin dont 1 'image tourmentait 
mes journees. Cette derni^re realisait vivante mon 
reve ideal et divin." 

The question was to secureherde&wf at the Opera, and 
for that purpose Gerard undertook to write a libretto 
in verse for a " Reine de Saba " for which Meyerbeer, then 
at the height of his popularity, was to compose the 
music. This was the task upon which he was ostensibly 
engaged when he joined for an hour or two the other 
workers in the Impasse du Doyenne. For some reason 
or other the project never came to maturity, perhaps 
because Gerard could not work to order, perhaps 

* Gerard, to be precise, quotes an earlier and more cruel version ; 

. . . La reine du Sabbat 
Quif depuis deux hivers, dans vos bras se debat, 
Vous kchafferait-elle ainsi qijCune chimere , , , 

175 



VIE DE BOHEME 



because Jenny Colon married another. All that is left 
of the " Reine de Saba " is a fragment published later 
in Gerard's " Nuits de Rhamadan," and the whimsical 
reminiscence, from which I have quoted, in "La 
Boheme Galante." In the latter he goes on to explain 
the " academic air " which he assumed one festive 
evening when the Bohemians were amusing themselves 
with a costume ball. He alone was abstracted because 
he had an appointment with Meyerbeer at seven the 
next morning. But he could not escape an adventure. 
A fair mask who sat weeping in a corner of the room 
appealed to him to take her home. Her cavalier had 
deserted her for another and dismissed her rudely. 
Gdrard took her out on the ground of the old riding - 
school hard by, where under the lime-trees they talked 
till the moon gave way to the dawn. The ball was 
almost over, and other masks found their way to this 
retreat. It was proposed to adjourn to an early 
breakfast in the Bois de Boulogne. No sooner said 
than done. The revellers set off joyously, Gerard's 
belle desoUe opposing only a feeble resistance. But 
Gerard had his appointment, and wished to work on 
his scenario. In vain Camille Rogier rallied him on 
his desertion of the lady. Gerard was firm, and 
Rogier with a laugh offered her his disengaged 
arm. He departed, bidding Gerard farewell with 
mocking bow. And he had entertained her all the 
evening ; poor Gerard ! such was his fate. As he 

176 



LA BOHEME GAL ANTE 

remarked: "J'avais quitte la proie pour I'ombre . . . 
comme tou jours ! " 

Gerard's adventure is in the nature of digression. 
So, indeed, was his whole life ; but the others were not 
more discursive than befitted Bohemians. They slept 
in their beds and took their meals regularly. Luncheon, 
after the morning's work, was a frugal meal except for 
Gautier, who had developed from a weedy youth into 
a giant with a Gargantuan appetite. They did not 
entirely fail to earn a penny, but when literary labour 
was so poorly paid Gautier, who was doing art criticism 
in a small paper for nothing, was glad enough to see 
his mother arrive in the morning with two raw cutlets 
and a bottle of bouillon for his dejeuner. Nevertheless, 
when the afternoon was over and the visitors gone — 
Roger de Beauvoir to dress for an evening at the Opera, 
Borel to rage at society in some poor garret — Rogier, 
Gautier, and Houssaye, now and then capturing Gerard, 
set out to roam in the busy city whose festive lamps 
were glittering on the boulevards and twinkling along 
the Seine. They dined — they were not too poor for 
that — in the Palais Royal more often than not, and 
wandered for the rest of the night where their fancy 
took them. Now the theatre would entice them with 
some romantic play by Hugo or Dumas, after which 
a supper with much punch would be indispensable ; 
now they would invade the Chaumiere or some other 
place of dancing. At that time everybody danced deliri- 

177 M 



VIE DE BOHEME 



ously,* the quadrille being in great vogue since it lent 
itself readily to choreographic invention on the part of the 
individual. Ourliac and Houssaye, for instance, attracted 
great attention by dancing a quadrille which represented 
Napoleon at all the critical periods of his life — the siege 
of Toulon, the Pyramids, Waterloo, and St. Helena. 
Another evening, Gautier having gone to visit his parents 
and Gerard absent, Houssaye might return quietly to 
the white and gold salon with Rogier, who would talk 
with him or sing him songs while the cats purred on 
their knees ; or, yet again, they might carouse in the 
Flemish cabaret hard by, served by the young taverniere 

Qui tout en souriant nous versait de la Mere. 
Quelle gorge orgueilleuse et quel ceil attrayant ! 
Que Preault a sculpte de mots en la voyant. 

Cette fille aux yeux bleus follement rejouie, 
Les blonds cheveux epars, la bouche epanouie, 
Jetant a tout venant son coeur et sa vertu, 
Et faisant de V amour un joyeux impromptu, 
Fut de notre jeunesse une image fidele ; 
Arni, longtemps encor nous reparlerons d'elle. 

So sang of her Houssaye, whose souvenirs of Bohemia 
at the magic age of vingt ans are deeply tinged with 

* See Chapter xi for a further account of Bohemia's amuse- 
ments. 

178 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

amorous memories. In fact, la Boheme galante, as its 
name implies, was not a monastery, and its life was not 
shared, but illuminated by a number of divinities whose 
aureoles had been over more than one windmill. The 
chief of these was "la Cydalise," 

Respirant un lilas qui jouait dans sa main 
Et pressentant dejd le triste lendemain. 

She was treasure-trove of Camille Rogier's, a beautiful 
woman, and titular mistress of the Bohemian encamp- 
ment. They were all jealous of Rogier's good fortune, 
for, since he was twenty-five, they considered him a patri- 
arch, and Theo could not understand how Cydalise could 
put up with such an old man. She lived quite happily 
in the Impasse, making the afternoon tea, sitting as a 
model, and inflaming all their hearts. Theo's passion 
was of a frantic heat. He besieged Cydalise with 
long and violent apostrophes, swearing to kill the 
senile tyrant who kept her in his power, threats for 
which Rogier, ever smiling, did not care a button. 
Poor Cydalise, she was a butterfly whose day was short. 
To Rogier's great grief consumption seized her. For 
some weeks he enlivened her sick-bed by singing her 
songs and drawing pictures for her amusement ; but 
the day came when her ears no longer heard and her 
lovely eyes were closed. Gerard, Gautier, Roger de 
Beauvoir, and Ourliac went to her funeral, and Bohemia 

179 



VIE DE BOHEME 



lost its official mistress. Yet there were others. 
Gerard draws a picture of Gautier, on a Gothic stool, 
reading his verses while Cydalise or Lorry or Victorine 
swung herself carelessly in the hammock of Sarah 
la blonde, and Arsene Houssaye at the end of " Vingt 
Ans " recalls them in the lines : 

Judith oublie Arthur, Franz, Bogier et le reste, 
En donnant a son coeur la solitude agreste ; 
Bosine a Chantilly caresse un jeune enfant 
Plus joli qu'un Amour et plus joueur qu'unfaon. 

Ninon au Jockey Club vend chacun de ses jours ; 
Charlotte danse encore — et dansera toujours. 
Alice ? — ilfaut la plaindre et prier Dieu pour elle, 
Elle est dans les chijfons, la pauvre Chanterelle ; 
Armande ?—TJn prince russe epris de sa beaute 
Travaille a lui refaire une virginite. 
Olympe ? — un mauvais livre ouvert a chaque page — 
Ce matin je Vai vue en galant equipage. . . . 

The loves of Doyenne were true enfants de Boheme, 
neither great passions nor elective affinities, but pastimes 
leaving regrets for inspiration ; not devouring flames, 
but pleasantly crackling experimental fires, drawn 
chiefly from those great hearths, the stage and the 
corps de ballet. How much fantasy went to their 
burning is illustrated in a story. told by Houssaye of 

180 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 



Gerard, who, on one occasion, to the despair of his 
friends, became obsessed with a mad desire to set out 
that instant for Cythera and revive the gods of Greece. 
Prompt measures were necessary, and Houssaye devoted 
himself to the rescue by professing to enter into the scheme 
with joy, only remarking that it would be well to have 
lunch first. This seemed to Gerard a reasonable pre- 
liminary, so they adjourned to the Cafe d'Orsay, where 
over the first bottle Gerard developed his scheme with 
growing eloquence. But the first stage on the way to 
Cythera lasted for several bottles, and at the com- 
mencement of the next Gerard met a provisional 
goddess in the shape of an attractive grisette. Houssaye, 
convinced that his companionship was now no longer 
necessary, abandoned the voyage, and left Gerard to 
continue it up several flights of stairs. The end of this 
ascent marked his farthest point ; after a halt of two 
days he descended and turned his footsteps back to 
Bohemia. The loves of Bohemia which gambol so 
trippingly in the tongue of France are ill at ease in our 
austerer medium, for our Northern spirit has ever 
refused to admit, as the French do with engaging 
candour, that man, particularly the artist-man, is 
naturally polygamous. Lorry, Victorine, Armande, and 
the rest were the only appropriate feminine attachments 
of Bohemia, even of the golden age, the pagan loves of 
pagan heroes, who were greedy of their caresses without 
hungering for their souls, grew jealous at their eyes' 

181 



VIE DE BOHEME 



wayward glances, but took no umbrage at the inward 
abstraction of their minds, and were content with the 
homage of their play-hours without seeking to rival the 
ideals of their artistic contemplations. But the mark 
of the golden age was that they played for love and not 
for money : they would dance the heels off their slippers 
in the barren land of Doyenne when all the millions of 
a dull prince would have moved their agile toes only 
to the most significant of kicks. It was a mad little 
world, but good because Mammon had not corrupted 
its natural spontaneity. True, it was deficient in some 
virtues, but some virtues are frankly middle-aged, to 
be put on with a less tricksy cut of the clothes. Bohemia 
was young ; it loved and feasted and, being poor, 
made debts. There is not much to be said for getting 
into debt, in spite of Panurge's ingenious discourse, 
except that it is an unavoidable corollary of certain 
conjunctions of temperament and circumstance. It is 
difficult, anyhow, not to pardon Gerard for dissipating 
his capital and running up bills on account of his delight- 
ful inspiration of receiving a pressing creditor, a 
furniture dealer, with the recitation of a touching 
poem, " Meublez-vous les uns les autres," which affected 
the dun to tears. 

" We had no money, but we lived en grands seig- 
neurs,^^ wrote Arsene Houssaye, looking back. Indeed 
they did, if it be princely to have pretty actresses to 
perform impromptu comedies and dancers of the 

182 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

Opera for one's partners in a quadrille. I suspect that 
these occasions were not so frequent as the exuberant 
narrator would have us suppose. Gerard more frankly 
says they spent much valuable time making eyes at 
the landlord's wife, who lived on the ground floor, which 
argues an occasional dearth of desirable objects for idle 
glances. Nevertheless, dances and comedies they did 
have, and towards the end of its epoch la Boheme 
galante had one supreme festival. It was a combined 
dramatic entertainment and fancy-dress ball, which 
took place in November 1835. The idea, says Gautier, 
was Gerard's own, who thus made amends for his 
frequent absences by being responsible for the crowning 
glory of the first Bohemia. His suggestion rested on 
the artistic ground that it was a pity to inhabit a room 
and never to receive there a company worthy of it : a 
bal costume alone could produce a gathering that would 
not clash with the decorations. That was all very 
well, but the general finances were in a melancholy 
condition, and a reception, even in Bohemia, required 
capital. Gerard brushed the objection lightly aside. 
People who are without the necessaries of life, he 
pointed out, must have the superfluities, or they would 
have nothing at all, which would be too little, even for 
poets. As for refreshments, they would do better 
than give their guests cups of weak tea or rum punch ; 
they would feast the eye instead by having the room 
specially decorated with mural paintings by their 

183 



VIE DE BOHEME 



friends, the artists. Only princes and farmers -general 
could indulge in such magnificence, and the fame of the 
Impasse would be undying. 

The idea was not entirely new, for Dumas at his 
great ball in 1832 had done very much the same. For 
him all the leading artists of the day, including Delacroix, 
had painted the walls of the ballroom, as he narrates 
in a spirited passage of his " Memoirs." But Dumas 
had not dared to make art take the place of bodily 
refreshment, for he declares that his guests consumed 
the bag of several days' shooting and some thousand 
bottles of wine. La Bohhne galante, though younger 
and less known artists were at its command, placed 
art upon her proper pedestal. Ladders were quickly 
erected, panels and piers were parcelled out, and 
the work began. It is a scene on which to dwell in 
envious imagination. They were perched on ladders, 
the merry band, smoking cigarettes, singing Musset's 
songs or declaiming Victor Hugo, with roses behind 
their ears — a counsel of Gerard's, who, contenting 
himself with a general sm'vey of operations, recom- 
mended a return to the classic festal usage of garlanding 
the head with flowers. Camille Rogier, smiling through 
his beard, was painting Oriental or fantastically Hoff- 
mannesque scenes ; the burly Gautier executed a picnic 
in the style of Watteau, a tantalizing subject for thirsty 
dancers ; Nauteuil, with his long golden hair, limned 
a Naiad ; and Adolphe Leleux produced topers crowned 

184 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

with ivy in the manner of Velasquez. Other friends 
were pressed into service, Wattier, Chatillon, and 
Rousseau ; Chasseriau contributed a bathing Diana, 
Lorentz some revellers in Turkish costume, and Corot 
on two narrow panels placed two exquisite Italian land- 
scapes. Any comrade might lend a hand, and it was 
on this occasion that Gautier first made the acquaint- 
ance of Marilhat, the Oriental painter, whom a friend 
brought in and who drew on a vacant space some palm- 
trees over a minaret in white chalk. It is to this 
acquaintance that we owe Theo's recollections of this 
remarkable day. If that room, decorated thus because 
a lew louis d'or for refreshments were not forthcoming, 
were now existing, only a millionaire could buy, and 
only a great gallery worthily house, it. Yet regrets are 
misplaced, for it served its day, and it is well that the 
salon of Doyenne, with its furniture and its painted 
panels, in which the happy, money-scorning Bohemians 
danced at their culminating festival, should vanish 
before mercenary dealings could soil its freshness. 

The fete was gorgeous. True, the landlord's wife 
had refused their invitation — a severe blow. But the 
hosts with some consideration, knowing that their 
revels would make sleep impossible in the quarter, 
invited all their bachelor neighbours on the condition 
that they brought with them, femmes du monde protected, 
if they pleased, by masks and dominoes. The wonder- 
ful evening began with the pantomime of " Le Diable 

185 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Boiteux," in which many actresses from the boulevard 
took part. Then there were two little farces in which 
Ourliac covered himself with glory as the hujfo. The 
first was " Le Courrier de Naples," and the second, 
written by Ourliac himself, " La Jeunesse du Temps et le 
Temps de la Jeunesse," was introduced by a prologue by 
Gautier, read from behind the curtain. Ourliac was 
buried in bouquets, and the noisy orchestra brought in 
from a guingette struck up. The ruined quarter woke to 
life again, as in some ghost story ; the desert streets re- 
sounded with songs and laughter ; Turks and dSbardeurs 
affronted the frown of the staid old Louvre, and 
only the landlords and concierges, tossing sleeplessly, 
consigned Bohemians to everlasting flames. The 
dance, sustained only by good spirits, never flagged, 
till in the final galop every mask with his partner 
rushed pell-mell from the room, leaped wildly down 
the rickety stairs, dashed up the Impasse, and came to 
rest under the moonlit ruins of the old priory, where a 
little cabaret had opened, and only the late dawn of 
winter drove Bohemia to its bed, to dream of the 
Pompadour salon, of Ourliac 's satirical buffoonery, 
and of Roger de Beauvoir's magnificent Venetian 
costume of apple-green velvet with silver embroidery, 
and his inexhaustible wit, for once born of no 
champagne. 

It is melancholy to go back to a deserted ballroom, 
and we may spare ourselves the pain. That joyous 

186 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

evening, little as it may have seemed to do so, marked 
the passing of the golden age. Bohemia's sun hence- 
forth descended the skies. The next year saw marked 
changes. The landlord of the old house in the Impasse 
du Doyenne saw with relief — Gerard says he gave them 
notice to quit — the departure of his turbulent tenants. 
If Rogier had not gone to Constantinople it is possible 
that, even if the band had been compelled to change 
its quarters, some reconstruction of la Boheme galante 
might have been possible. With him, the stable, the 
earner of money, absent, there was no hope. The 
heroes of Bohemia had to leave their enchanted garden 
for the ordinarily circumscribed dwelling of impecunious 
mortals, and, like the heroes of Valhalla when Freia 
is snatched from them, a certain wanness came over the 
complexion of their lives. Joy and beauty and work 
and love were left, but the magic bloom had just faded. 
With smaller resources and in a colder light the re- 
settlement of Bohemia was a work of compromise, not 
spontaneous achievement. Rogier was gone ; Ourliac, 
who produced " Suzanne " with success, married before 
long, grew serious, and ended his days in the fullest 
odour of piety ; Roger de Beauvoir found the boulevard 
more to his taste than any less brilliant Bohemia. 
Gautier, Gerard, and Houssaye were left, a trio of 
markedly divergent tastes. They made one attempt at 
a common life in the Rue Saint-Germain-des-Pres, 
which seems to have lasted a year or two. The details 

187 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of it given by Gautier * and Houssaye f differ con- 
siderably. According to Gautier they did their own 
cooking : Arsene Houssaye was perfect in the panade, 
Gautier prepared the macaroni, no doubt remembering 
Graziano, while Gerard " went, with perfect self- 
possession, to buy galantines, sausages, or fresh pork 
cutlets with gherkins at the neighbouring cook-shop." 
Houssaye, on the other hand, says that they had a 
rascally valet and a cook called Margot, and that they 
broke up because they were at variance on the degree 
of luxury to be maintained, Gerard, whom anything 
satisfied, departing to a bare hotel garni, Gautier to a 
sumptuous apartment in the Rue de Navarin, and 
Houssaye sharing rooms in the Rue du Bac, on the left 
bank, with Jules Sandeau. I do not trouble to re- 
concile these tF^o accounts, for the memories of Bohemia 
are invariably picturesque. The fact remains that 
the old days could not come back. The first Bohemians 
were growing older, and the world was beginning to 
claim its once youthful defiers as servitors. Though 
Gerard's bed remained with Gautier as a memory of 
freer days, he knew too well that the gates of the 
prison were closing upon him. For a year or so 
he might pretend to mock destiny by producing 
another book of verses and a novel, or by making 
a voyage in Belgium accompanied by Gerard : but 

* In a preface to Gerard de Nerval's " CEuvres." 
"f " Les Confessions," 

188 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

he was a doomed man. About 1838 he became the 
dramatic critic of La Presse, entering the mill in 
which he was to grind for over thirty years. Well 
might he say in 1867, in an autobiographical notice : 
" La finit ma vie heureuse, independante et prime- 
sautiere." Houssaye kept up the pretence a little 
longer. Life in the Rue du Bac was gay ; there were 
suppers with Jules Janin and Sandeau at which Gautier 
and Ourliac sometimes appeared ; there was dancing ; 
there were the bright eyes of a certain Ninon, who 
inspired some pretty stanzas. But these were the 
last echoes of la premiere Boheme, as he had to admit. 
When they died away he completed the chapter of his 
youth, as Gautier had done, by travelling. 

Gerard alone escaped the inevitable superannuation 
of Bohemia, because he was too ethereal to become 
amenable to the ordinary dynamic laws of society. 
An attempt was made to catch him in the machinery 
by making him Gautier 's assistant as dramatic critic 
of La Presse. The sprite within him would not submit 
to the drudgery, and in a little while he gave it up. 
He preferred, as ever, to wander at his will and at 
his own hours, or to sit reading at the dead of night 
by the hght of a brass chandelier balanced on his head. 
It is not part of this book's plan to give complete bio- 
graphies of those who appear in its pages, but an 
exception shall be made in the case of Gerard de Nerval. 
Between 1837 and 1839 he stayed in Paris, writing a 

189 



VIE DE BOHEME 



comic opera, "Piquillo," with Dumas, in which Jenny- 
Colon appeared, several plays, with a certain number 
of articles and reviews. His way of life was always 
eccentric, but he had his first definite attack of madness 
in 1839 or 1840, and was placed in the famous establish- 
ment of Doctor Blanche. He came out in 1841 and 
resumed a career of wider vagabondage than ever, 
now with money, now without, but caring little in any 
case and ready to go to the ends of the earth with a 
whim and without a coin. In 1841 he joined Camille 
Rogier in Constantinople, and wandered subsequently 
in other parts of the East — an experience which gave 
rise to some of his best descriptive work. He returned 
to Paris again, where his spirit dwelt in the clouds and 
his body anywhere, though he often allowed it to rest 
with one of his many friends, with whom he would leave 
a shirt to be washed against his next coming. He 
continued to write not very successful plays between 
1846 and 1850, when he again went completely mad 
and retired to Dr. Blanche's house. His second stay 
here was longer, but as he soon became perfectly 
reasonable his friends were allowed to take him out 
for the day occasionally. Once more apparently cured 
he came out, but though he made one or two voyages 
his faculties remained permanently clouded. Of this he 
himself was perfectly conscious, but he bore his 
afflictions with perfect cheerfulness. His money was 
all gone, and the flashes of sanity too rare for him to 

190 




Gerard de Nerval 



LA BOHEME GALANTE 

earn much ; he was homeless, but not friendless, for 
he never appealed to his friends in vain. He came for 
crumbs like a bird in winter, but like a bird he would 
not stay. He would have been an appropriate guest 
at some strange Nachtasil such as Maxim Gorki 
describes so powerfully. Who knows, too, in what 
haunts he was not a familiar ? His comrades of older 
days could do no more than greet him and tend him 
when they saw him, and his equanimity was too great 
to drive them to forcible detention. As Paul de 
Saint-Victor wrote after his death : 

" In vain his friends tried to follow him with their 
hearts and eyes ; he was lost to sight for weeks, months, 
years. Then, one fine day, one found him by chance 
in a foreign city, a provincial town, or more often still 
in the country, thinking aloud, dreaming with open 
eyes, his attention fixed on the fall of a leaf, the flight 
of an insect or a bird, the form of a cloud, the dart of a 
ray, on all those vague and ravishing beauties that 
pass in the air. Never man saw a gentler madness, 
a tenderer folly, a more inoffensive and more friendly 
eccentricity. If he woke from his slumber, it was to 
recognize his friends, to love them and serve them, 
to double the warmth of his devotion and welcome as 
if he wished to make up to them for his long absences 
by an extra amount of tenderness." 

It was with a profound shock, therefore, that Paris 
heard, one morning in 1857, that Gerard had been 
found in the small hours, hanged to an iron railing by 

i9i 



VIE DE BOHEME 



a woman's apron-string, in one of the lowest and most 
ill-famed streets in Paris, the Rue de la Vieille-Lanterne. 
The mystery of his death has never been cleared up. 
The inquest brought little light, save that the inmates 
of a filthy little drink- shop probably knew more than 
they would tell. What Gerard was doing in that foul 
haunt will never be known. It is possible that he may 
have been murdered, but, as he had no money and 
was the gentlest of men, it is more probable that with 
some dreadful cloud upon his brain he destroyed himself. 
Yet his very gentleness had made such an end un- 
expected, for he seemed to be under the protection of 
the children's guardian angel. Some sudden impulse 
brought him a death alien to the character of his whole 
life. " II est mort," said Paul de Saint- Victor, " de 
la nostalgic du monde invisible. Paix a cette ame en 
peine de I'ideal ! " 

From Gerard's death, which Gustave Dore made 
more hideous in a ghoulish picture, it is a long cry back 
to the Impasse du Doyenne and the Pompadour salon 
of which he was the discoverer. Yet I will end this 
chapter, as it was begun, with this once festive haunt. 
Not long did it outlive its Bohemian colony. The land- 
lord, explosively wrathful at the sight of the wall 
paintings, at once covered the mess, as he no doubt 
called it, with a coating of disfemper. The treasures 
might, even then, have been saved in part, had anyone 
but Gerard de Nerval bought from the demolishers 

192 



LA BOHEME GAL ANTE 

Corot's panels, the pictures by Wattier, Chasseriau, 
and Chatillon, and Rogier's portraits of Cydalise and 
Theophile Gautier. His hand was one to baulk destiny 
only for a little. This moonstruck captain of a rickety 
craft let his cargo fall needlessly into the seas while he 
contemplated the stars and allowed the waves to swing 
the rudder. So passed la Boheme galante, leaving only 
a gilded legend. 



193 N 



IX 

SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

La Boheme carottiere et geignarde d'Henry Murger . . . 

Lepelletier : " Verlaine " 

To follow the heroes into exile would be depressing as 
well as unprofitable. It is better to stand respectfully 
aside from the Gdtlerddmmerung and wait till Bohemia 
emerges again from the mists, when a lapse of years 
has wrought some patent changes, for it is easier to 
contemplate a result than to trace a process. By 
leaping forward some ten years from the dispersal of 
the brotherhood that sanctified by its presence the 
Impasse du Doyenne it is possible to steal a march on 
Time and anticipate with a rapid glance his changing 
hand. Yet to catch this later view it is necessary for 
the nonce to abandon the world of flesh and blood and 
to turn from the acts and reminiscences of actual 
mortals to the imaginary scenes and fictitious characters 
of a book of stories. The tide of life was too strong 
upon Theophile Gautier and Arsene Houssaye for them 
to pause and stamp out firmly the features of those 
precious days in la Boheme galante ; they only caught 
fugitive impressions in retrospect. Henry Murger, 

194 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

less prodigal because less endowed, crystallized as 
it passed a moment of Bohemia, the Bohemia of 
common mortality, in " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." 
As a confectioner encloses a fresh grape in a transparent 
coat of candied sugar, so he, even while he tasted, sour 
and sweet, the fruit of his days, caught stray berries 
in a light film of art and presented them as dessert to 
the readers of the Corsaire, a small but amusing journal. 
Sharp and savomy as they were. Time would have 
destroyed them, as he destroyed the ambrosial luscious - 
ness of the Doyenne feasts, but for that light film. 
Nobody remembers reminiscences, but a well-told story 
preserves even the most trivial events. 

Murger's "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme" is a book 
which has now lived for nearly seventy years and does 
not seem likely as yet to pass into the lumber-room. 
At the same time, it is to be wished that more people 
in England knew it, if only because the presup- 
position of such knowledge would make this chapter 
easier to write. It is not, of course, difficult to 
criticize the " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " ; many of 
Mm-ger's countrymen, indeed, have done so. Its 
ethics, its humour, and its style have been attacked. 
M. Boucher, an estimable civil servant interested in 
literatm-e, in his " Souvenirs d'un Parisien " calls it an 
effort to depict the life of low-class students, accuses 
Murger of insipidity and repetition, and denies any 
wit to his " etudiants demi-escrocs, demi-canailles." 

195 



VIE DE BOHEME 



M. Pelloquet, who was good enough to pronounce a 
discourse over Murger's grave, said: " It is an unhealthy 
book, in which vice grimaces, youth paints its cheeks 
like a superannuated coquette, and a fictitious in- 
souciance conceals, not a laziness that is sometimes 
poetic, but the cowardly indolence of men without 
courage and without talent." He was also rash 
enough to predict that it would not live. Jules Janin, 
the critic, in a wiser appreciation, asserted that with a 
little more art and a little more poetry Murger might 
have created more pardonable heroes and no less 
charming heroines. Gautier's dictum about the in- 
vertebrate verses of " that feeble appendage to Alfred 
de Musset " has already been quoted, and the opinion 
of Verlaine's biographer appears at the head of this 
chapter. Murger's gravest fault, however, in the eyes 
of French people is that he wrote bad French. To 
them the mishandling of that difficult, elusive, and 
withal limited tongue is a crime of which we can hardly 
comprehend the enormity. It is perfectly true that 
Murger was culpable in this respect ; he was deficient 
in scholarship and in rhythmic sense, so that his poems 
are weak and his prose, even where he tried to give it an 
air of respectability, betrays its imperfections no less 
manifestly than M. Jourdain betrayed his birth. We in 
England, fastidious as our critics are in the matter 
of language, have not our ears tuned to this painful 
degree of precision. So long as a style effectively 

196 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

harmonizes with its environment we are content to let 
it stand : the Gothic grandeur of English can suffer 
without disfigurement the intrusion of the quaint. 
To sympathies so trained Murger's style in " Scenes 
de la Vie de Boheme " should make a particular appeal, 
since in that book, for the most part, he makes no 
attempt to ape the academician, but writes in the 
extravagant jargon of the very Bohemians he is 
describing — a language full of comic inversions, ex- 
travagances, and lapses from grammar, which are an 
essential part of the book's gaiety and charm. Though 
his matter is unmistakably Parisian, his humour is, 
in some respects, remarkably English, delighting in 
broad and bustling effects rather than subtle strokes 
and sudden flashes. As for the life and the characters 
that he depicts, criticism of them will be implicit in the 
remainder of this chapter ; of the book as a whole no 
more need be said than that it has survived when all 
the rest of Murger's work has been forgotten. It is not 
a book to be placed unwarily in the hands of the young 
and tender ; parts of it are exaggerated, parts may be 
wished away, but, when all has been said, it remains, 
not the picture of la vie de Boheme at its best and 
brightest, but the classic expression of the Bohemian 
spirit — a frank confession, not the pseudo-pathetic 
souvenir of a prosperous greybeard. Its pages are 
among those rare ones in the world's library that have 
caught and held for a moment the intangible fresh- 

197 



VIE DE BOHEME 



ness, the poetry, and the gaiety of youth. For this 
alone it deserves never to grow old. 

Murger's Bohemia is described in a series of scenes 
taken from the life of four young men, a quartet as 
fascinating to read of as Dumas' Musketeers, though 
possibly less comfortable companions. They were 
Rodolphe, the sentimental poet ; Marcel, the painter ; 
Colline, the peripatetic philosojDher and bookworm ; and 
Schaunard, painter and musician, incomparable rogue 
whose masterpiece was a symphony " Sur I'infiuence 
du bleu dans la musique " — a sly hit at debased 
Romanticism. Chance brought them together. Schau- 
nard, unable to pay his arrears of rent, was forced to 
leave his lodging with his furniture in pawn. A day's 
peregrination in search of a loan brought him three 
francs in cash, which he spent in dinner, together with 
the less tangible benefit of Colline's and Rodolphe's 
acquaintance. He swore brotherhood with Colline over 
a dish of stewed rabbit in a little eating-house, and 
the pair collected Rodolphe in the Cafe Momus, where, 
at Colline's expense, they passed the rest of a not too 
abstemious evening. Meanwhile Marcel, the painter, 
who had taken Schaunard's room unfurnished in 
advance, though having no furniture of his own but a 
second-hand scenic interior from the stock of a bank- 
rupt theatre, had been persuaded to take the lodging 
furnished with Schaunard's furniture, and had duly 
moved in. Late in the evening, when a sharp shower 

198 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

of rain was falling, Schaunard, in bacchic absence of 
mind, offered asylum to his two new comrades. Hastily 
buying the elements of a supper, they gaily invaded the 
apartment of Marcel. Explanations were difficult, but 
were accomplished during supper, and next day Marcel 
and Schaunard agreed to live together. A dinner and 
a magnificent supper .inaugurated the foundation of the 
new clan, which was united, so long as their Bohemian 
days continued, by an unbroken bond of friendship. 
It is these young men whom Murger's readers follow 
through their straits and shifts, their love affairs, their 
extravagances, their boisterous jokes, and their naive 
pleasures — the poet, the artist, the savant, and the 
musician, characters drawn from Murger himself and 
his living friends, whose coats were ragged and whose 
pockets almost always empty, who were the bane of 
respectable concierges and proprietors of cafes, who 
bore short commons with cheerful bravado and 
succumbed to innocent gluttony in times of unexpected 
prosperity, who were really funny even if they were 
sometimes vulgar, whose expedients for catching the 
elusive piece de cent sous were as amazing as their 
puns, who made life, even in a garret, a sentimental 
poem and a rollicking ballad, and who had the sense to 
become prosaic before the sentiment grew threadbare 
or the ballad grew stale. It is a great temptation to 
follow some of their adventures in greater detail from 
the day when Marcel went out to dine in the sugar- 

199 



VIE DE BOHEME 



merchant's coat while Schaunard painted the latter's 
portrait in his own colour-stained dressing-gown, to the 
day when Rodolphe by composing a didactic poem 
at fifteen sous a dozen lines for a celebrated dentist, 
Marcel by painting the portraits of eighteen grenadiers 
at six francs a head, and Schaunard by playing the 
same scale all day and every day for a month to revenge 
a rich Englishman on an actress's parrot, earned enough 
to give their mistresses new dresses and take them for a 
holiday in the fields of Fontenay-aux-Roses. Yet the 
impulse to discursive commentary must be checked, for 
plucking flowers is a distraction from comparative 
botany. Murger, after all, tells his own story infinitely 
better than any translator could do, and the purpose 
which is proper to the present book is to inquire what 
kind of a Bohemia appears in Murger's light-hearted 
pages. 

So far as Bohemia was concerned, the generation of 
1830 had entirely passed away by 1846, when Murger's 
sketches actually appeared, and the young men of whom 
Bohemia was composed were formed under less violent 
influences. The last flashes of Napoleon's glory had 
not illuminated their early days, they knew little of the 
stifling reign of Charles X, and the Revolution of 1830 
took place when they had only a little while out- 
grown the nursery. By the time they grew up the 
complexion of affairs in Paris wore a more even tone. 
Assisted by Guizot, Louis Philippe had found the juste- 

200 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 



milieu to his people's satisfaction, revolutionary ten- 
dencies had been checked or diverted into harmless 
channels of humanitarian reform, the bourgeois had 
firmly grasped his power and built up an already solid 
bulwark of commercial interest. In the artistic world, 
too, things were quieter. " Hernani," once a scandal, 
had become a classic, and there was no further need 
of red waistcoats and furious claques. Romanticism, 
indeed, had become so workaday that a successful 
little excitement was aroused by a reaction against it in 
what was called " I'ecole de bon sens," whose chief 
poet, Ponsard, gained quite a celebrity for a short time 
with his classic drama "Lucrece." Beyond the gadfly 
of artistic impulse and the natural fermentation of the 
adolescent mind, there was little to rouse a young man's 
passions or send his blood coursing faster through his 
veins ; there was no particular idol to worship, no 
hobby-horse to ride, as a Gautier or a Borel had 
worshipped Hugo and mounted the gallant steed called 
Middle Ages. The creed of Romanticism was so 
thoroughly established that there was nothing left to 
make any fuss about, with the natural consequence 
that its early extravagances had fallen out of fashion 
and there was no further need to be satanic or profess 
excessive sensibility. Literature was feeling its way to 
the austerer Romanticism of Flaubert and the Gon- 
courts, as painting towards the "realism" of Courbet, 
but the growth was still below ground and the surface 

201 



VIE DE BOHEME 



as yet seemed undisturbed. The generation of Rodolphe 
and Schaunard found, therefore, in Paris no eager band 
to whom they could ally themselves and to whose 
educative influence they could submit. Driven by 
their impulses towards the arts, with souls naturally 
romantic, as most young men's souls are, they found 
no cause which they could immediately embrace in the 
manner of the second cenacle. They missed that 
valuable education which is the idolization of a great 
man, and were confined instead to fighting their own 
battle, a very much less distinguished affair, which 
allowed many little dishonourable compromises with 
indolence and in which victory meant no more than 
individual success. This explains, to some extent, the 
absence of intellectual fecundity in Murger's heroes, 
which even their most devoted admirers cannot deny. 
Rodolphe's poems are indeed only pale imitations of 
Alfred de Musset, who was an almost inevitable model 
for any lyric youngster of the day ; his more serious 
effort, a drama called "he Vengeur," good enough to burn 
for warmth in a draughty garret, is not vouchsafed to 
us in quotation by Rodolphe's creator. Marcel was 
obviously not a very gifted painter, in spite of his 
famous Passage de la Mer Rouge, which was sent up in 
a different guise to each Salon and inevitably rejected, 
and when this great work was sold to become a shop- 
sign the artist's pride was not in the least revolted. 
Schaunard never gives any signs of musical inspiration 

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SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 



till at the close he pubHshes a successful album of 
songs, and Colline, polyglot philosopher as he is dubbed, 
abandoned his career before anything tangible had 
been achieved to make an advantageous marriage 
and give musical evenings. It would, of course, be 
pedantic to insist upon these considerations in the case 
of a book of short stories which aims chiefly at amusing, 
but it is impossible not to be struck in reading the 
" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " by the absence from the 
conversation of the characters of any indication of their 
artistic ideals. Save when Schaunard tells the sugar- 
merchant that he was a pupil of Horace Vernet, mur- 
muring to himself, "Horreur, je renie mes dieux," and 
Marcel makes a scornful allusion to the " ecole de bon 
sens," the only proof that they are true artists lies in 
their creator's own assertion, of which he is not entirely 
mindful in the denouement. The worst sinner of all is 
Colline, for this mine of knowledge, throughout the 
book, is made chiefly remarkable for the composition 
of dreadful puns. This may be partly due to that 
want of " a little more art and a little more poetry " 
of which Janin accused Murger, but the fault was not 
only personal. The second cSnacle and the brother- 
hood of the Impasse du Doyenne were, without doubt, 
just as commonplace in their ordinary conversation, 
but what lifted them off the ground was the enthu- 
siasm of a hotly waged artistic struggle, which by 
Murger 's day had died down. His four heroes are 

203 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Romantics in general, but in no sense champions of 
any cause. 

Another unmistakable fact about Rodolphe and his 
friends is that they were inconspicuous. True, they 
made the Cafe Momus unbearable to its more peaceful 
customers, and were not unknown at the Chaumiere, 
but the Cafe Momus was in a back street, and the 
Chaumiere was certainly not the Bal de I'Opera. They 
were miles away from the viveurs upon the boulevard, 
and their connexion with the prominent writers and 
artists of the day was extremely remote. They made 
no public appearance, they were not a force to be 
reckoned with. They kept up the form of defying 
convention, but it was now no more than a convenient 
form for the impecunious. Art and the bourgeoisie 
were beginning to play into one another's hands ; the 
former had gained its liberty to a great degree, while 
the latter by the gilded pill of commercial success had 
purged artistic demonstration of its crudities. The 
time when eccentricity was a symbol had passed ; now 
it was only a skin to be sloughed, as Marcel saw when 
in a very sensible lecture delivered to Rodolphe he said : 

" Poetry does not exist only in a disordered life, in 
improvised happiness, in love affairs that only last as 
long as a candle, in more or less eccentric rebellions 
against the prejudices which will for ever be the 
sovereigns of the world : a dynasty is more easily 
overturned than a custom, even a ridiculous one. To 

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SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

have talent it is not sufficient to put on a summer over- 
coat in May ; one can be a true poet or artist and yet 
keep one's feet warm and have one's three meals a 
day." 

Their Bohemia, in fact, was a kind of undergraduate 
existence, in which all sorts of disorder and youthful 
folly might be excused on the plea that youth must 
be served, but which could in no sense be regarded as a 
part of civic life, much less as the best part, the most 
truly disinterested and artistic. This is a significant 
change of attitude from the days of la Boheme 
galante, which was one of the centres of Paris. That, 
indeed, was transitory and presupposed youth, but it 
was not obscure and its inhabitants had no misgivings. 
It was not they who gave it up as the writer of Eccle- 
siastes put away childish things, for they gloried in it 
all their days as the best part of their life ; it was that 
the world claimed them for its business in spite of 
themselves. In their disinterested love of art they had 
made themselves valuable, and when the command 
went forth " Come and be paid " they were forced to 
go. To guard against any accusation of misunder- 
standing Murger, it may be admitted that he calls his 
heroes only a small section of Bohemia — they moved, 
to use his phrase, in the troisiemes dessous of literature 
and art — but there is no indication that Murger con- 
ceived a Bohemia which had its part in any higher 
sphere. When Rodolphe gets a lucky present of five 

205 



VIE DE BOHEME 



hundred francs the determination he avows is not to 
suffuse his httle corner of Bohemia with a more worthy 
splendour, but to become, hke every other successful 
man, a bourgeois. " These are my projects," he cries 
to an astonished Marcel. " Sheltered from the material 
embarrassments of life, I am going to work seriously ; 
I shall finish my great work, and gain a settled place 
in public opinion. To begin with, I renounce Bohemia, 
I shall dress like everybody else, I shall have a black 
coat, and I shall frequent drawing-rooms." Such a 
speech would have fallen like a thunderbolt in Camille 
Rogier's Pompadour salon, and its author considered 
charitably to be in the first stages of lunacy. 
Marcel, however, falls in at once with the ambitious 
scheme, and they are only saved by their Bohemianism 
being stronger than their resolution. Both in the 
stories and the preface to the " Scenes de la Vie de 
Boheme " — where Murger speaks with a picturesque 
seriousness — ^there is no sign of that former joy in 
Bohemian life as the life which was alone worth living 
by poets and artists. Throughout he regards it as a 
necessity conditioned by the artistic impulse combined 
with poverty, to be borne with the courage and gaiety 
of youth, to be regretted " perhaps " from the vantage- 
point of subsequent prosperity. The true Bohemia — 
as distinct from the Bohemia of mere idealists, in- 
capables, and amateurs — he regards as a narrow, stony 
path leading up the sides of an arduous mountain, 

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SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

beset by the chasms of doubt and misery, but making 
for a possible goal, the goal of a sufficient income. 
Divested of all its agrements — resourcefulness, humour, 
courage, extravagance, which are properly attributes of 
youth, the real illuminant — ^Murger's Bohemia is laid 
bare as a merely economic state. The true Bohemians, 
he says, are known upon the literary and artistic market- 
place, where their wares are saleable, but at moderate 
prices ; " their existence each day is a work of genius " — 
" preceded by a pack of ruses, poaching in all the 
industries connected with the arts, they hunt from 
morn till eve that ferocious animal which is called the 
five-franc piece." To Murger, who wrote of what he 
knew, the man who had the means to live a stable 
existence, howsoever retired, was a fool if he remained 
in Bohemia : to the inhabitants of la Boheme 
galante it was the not being entirely destitute which 
made their life peculiarly worth living. If Colline ever 
speculated with any profundity he may have seen that 
his friends and he lived really in a prison of which 
poverty, prodigality^ and idleness were warders. The 
Bohemia of Gautier, Gerard de Nerval, and Houssaye 
had all the glory of a voluntary protest, a passionate 
assertion of liberty, a revivifying of life in accordance 
with new artistic ideas. 

The difference is not simply one of degree. The 
brotherhood of the Impasse du Doyenne were less 
destitute and more talented than Rodolphe and his 

207 



VIE DE BOHEME 



friends, but that is not a point that at this moment 
requires stress. The important fact is that in a few 
years Bohemia had undergone a great change ; that, 
whereas a few years after 1830 young men with a Httle 
money and some talent dehberately chose to make 
their hfe more picturesque than that of ordinary 
citizens and to escape from the suffocating atmosphere 
of commerce and officialdom, a few years after 1840 
the ideal of struggling artists was to become as soon 
as possible successful merchants and to escape from 
the possibility of that picturesqueness which they 
welcomed as an alleviation of a state of transitory 
discomfort. It would be quite beside the mark to 
regard Bohemia as guilty in this of self-degradation ; 
so far, indeed, as the change was conscious, the majority 
of mankind must logically find it praiseworthy, for all 
human effort is judged by its tendency to well-being. 
The change, however, was none of Bohemia's doing, 
but was due mainly to the fact that art was beginning, 
in the modern sense, to pay. The beginnings were 
small, but they were quite evident, especially in the 
increased profits from journalism and illustration. 
The old Bohemia of the golden age rested on the 
supposition that the artist worked primarily to please 
himself, and that money, source of enjoyment as it 
was, remained a secondary consideration. The sup- 
position, in the first forward rush of commercial 
prosperity, was bound to become untenable. Writers 

208 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

and artists of obvious talent were too valuable com- 
mercial assets to be left to their careless selves ; they 
had to be tempted into the cage — an easy task, for, if 
money be regarded as a means of more enjoyment, why 
should a Bohemian resist it ? It was unimportant if 
individuals held out, or were too uncompromising to 
suit the market ; the fact remained that there was a 
market and a list of quotations, and this fact was the 
disruption of Bohemia. Whereas it had been a true 
fraternity in which art was all-important and individual 
celebrity a thing of so little moment that there was 
complete equality of intercourse, it now included the 
last two sections of a trisected world of artists — the 
well-paid, the ill-paid, and the not paid at all — and 
where money intervenes all equality ceases. The 
majority of the well-paid were kept too busy even to 
see they had lost the old freedom ; they were tempted 
to live as other people in decent rooms and decent 
coats, and as their vanity kept them from complaining, 
the ill -paid and the not paid at all naturally envied 
their state, striving and jostling for an equally happy 
captivity, or at least intending to do so as soon as their 
irrepressible blood took a staider course through their 
veins. The charm of Murger's merry crew is that their 
blood was too strong for their business instincts ; the 
Bohemian spirit snatched them along in spite of 
Mammon, for Mammon, incomplete as his hold has 
always been over youth, was in those days but just 

209 o 



VIE DE BOHEME 



learning his strength. Where youth and art combine 
the Bohemian spirit is always there ; only the possi- 
bilities of Bohemia have in the course of time been 
crowded out. But in Murger's Paris Bohemia, shorn 
of earthly glory as it was, without lot in the brilliance 
of the boulevard, cut off from the more thriving traders 
in the artistic market-place, was still a possibility 
because the Bohemian tradition was still fairly strong, 
and because Paris was still a small city, its life little 
disturbed by a floating population of aliens and its 
interests completely self-centred. 

The Bohemia described by Murger certainly corre- 
sponded in one respect with the general conception 
of Bohemianism to-day in that it was devoid of any 
material splendour. Neither Rodolphe nor Marcel 
indicates any desire for the old furniture, damasks, and 
other decorations which so glittered in the eyes of the 
early Romantics, but at any rate such things would 
have been beyond the capacity of their purses. They 
were unequivocally poor. When Rodolphe was in 
funds he could afford a hundred francs a year for a 
garret in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne ; when 
Providence was less kind he lived " in the Avenue de 
Saint-Cloud, on the fifth branch of the third tree on the 
left as you leave the Bois de Boulogne." As for enter- 
tainments, they came a long way behind the costume 
ball of the Impasse du Doyenne. At Rodolphe's 
Wednesdays in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, it was 

210 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

said, one could only sit down morally and was forced 
to drink badly filtered water in eclectic earthenware. 
Even the grand soiree given by Rodolphe and Marcel, 
which began with a literary and musical entertainment 
and ended with a dance prolonged till sunrise, only 
cost the hosts fifteen francs — miraculously acquired at 
the last moment — in addition to a set of chairs which 
fed the stove from midnight onwards, though, as these 
belonged to a neighbour, they were probably not paid 
for. Their wardrobes were not conspicuous for any 
particularly Romantic or medieval effect, but simply, 
except in times of exceptional windfalls, for extreme 
dilapidation. Schaunard's chief garment was an over- 
coat worn to a state of utter baldness ; Colline's ulster, 
crammed with books and papers, had the surface of 
a file ; Marcel's coat was called " Mathusalem," but he 
must have acquired it subsequent to the sugar-mer- 
chant's momentous visit, for at that time, after an 
hour's search to discover a costume fit to dine out in, 
the net results were a pair of plaid trousers, a grey hat, 
a red tie, a (once) white glove and a black glove. To 
dine sufficiently at a small restaurant was for them 
no ordinary luxury, and as for entering the Rocher 
de Caucale, they might as well have aspired to member- 
ship of the Jockey Club. Why, Schaunard had never 
seen a lobster till the old Jew gave them all a feast 
after buying Marcel's Passage de la Mer Rouge. Some 
days they dispensed with dining altogether, on others 

211 



VIE DE BOHEME 



the staple dish was pickled herrings ; so it is hardly 
surprising that on the proceeds of Marcel's picture they 
remained at table for five days, the room filled with 
a Pantagruelic atmosphere and a whole bed of oyster- 
shells covering the floor. It was not that they took 
up any quixotic attitude of art for art's sake, like the 
society called Les Buveurs d'Eau, whom Murger de- 
scribes in one of his stories and whose principle was 
not to make the slightest concession to necessity. 
They were imperfect journeymen, indolent, careless, 
too easily distracted, but they were among those who 
were ill-paid rather than those who never tried to be 
paid. Rodolphe edited a small fashion paper, UEcharpe 
d'Iris ; Marcel painted ruined manors for a Jew dealer 
and portraits of the lowliest possessor of a few spare 
francs ; Colline gave lessons in the same range of subjects 
as Pico di Mirandola professed to discuss ; and Schaunard, 
besides exhibiting a special ability as a borrower, put 
music to bad poetry for hard-hearted music-publishers. 
In comparing this Bohemia with that of Gautier and 
Gerard de Nerval, it is easy to see the justification of 
Lepelletier's epithet " carotti^re." The graceful ad- 
juncts and by no means contemptible achievements of a 
former day had vanished as completely as its en- 
thusiasms. The presence of Roger de Beauvoir and 
Nestor Roqueplan in the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne 
is as difficult to imagine as the composition of " Made- 
moiselle de Maupin." Yet Rodolphe and his friends 

212 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 



were at least as well off in one respect, that is, in their 
affairs of the heart, if, indeed, they had not some 
advantage. The divinities of the Impasse du Doyenne, 
Cydalise excepted, seem to have had their home in the 
corps de ballet, a body not notable for the tenderness or 
constancy of their attachments. Murger, who, like his 
Rodolphe, was an amorous sentimentalist, gave some 
poetic value, if not as much as he intended, to the 
figures of Mimi and Musette, the idols of Rodolphe and 
Marcel, who play such a prominent part in the " Scenes 
de la Vie de Boheme," that it would be an affectation 
not to speak of them, although an Englishman must 
always do so with some reserve. In spite of all that 
may be said against them — indeed, is said by their 
very creator — there is a charm about Mimi and Musette 
which must always hold the reader of these stories, a 
charm which includes Francine, who died holding the 
muff bought for her by her lover, and the vulgar 
Phemie Teinturiere, who shared the lot of a no more 
refined Schaunard. Without sympathizing, at least 
temporarily, with all the blend of mystery and frank- 
ness which a Frenchman breathes into the word 
" amour," it is useless to read French literature. To 
him love is the highest emotional value — emotion being 
in its turn the highest value in life — so that a union, 
whether it be celebrated in the Madeleine or in the mairie 
of the notorious thirteenth arrondissement, is equally 
sacred and equally interesting. We in England look at 

213 



VIE DE BOHEME 



love differently and, as we naturally think, better, but 
we are not hindered, nevertheless, from abandoning our 
view occasionally. We do so implicitly when we shed 
tears over " La Dame aux Camelias," over " Madame 
Butterfly," and over Mimi herself in Puccini's " La 
Boheme." To be honest, then, we must accept 
Murger's view, if we enjoy his book, as there is very 
little doubt that we do. We applaud Musette when 
she sm-reptitiously waters the flowers whose duration 
is to measure that of her love for Marcel ; we forgive 
her fickleness because she follows her fancy without 
calculation, even though on leaving the rich young 
nobleman to visit Marcel she takes six days on the road ; 
we warm to Mimi because Rodolphe really loved her and 
she him, though his jealousy and her love of luxury 
made their days a burden and their rupture certain ; 
and if we join heartily in Marcel's ironical tirade against 
Mimi the fine lady, we cannot restrain our sadness at 
Mimi returning to her old love to die. The life of the 
Impasse du Doyenne was so joyous, strong, and full 
that its amours passagers can be taken for granted, 
happy fantasies without regrets ; but Murger's Bohemia, 
with its frequent moments of despondency and hard- 
ship, was forced to rely upon its heart to supply that 
relieving colour which its surroundings could not give. 
Mimi and Musette, Phemie and Francine, even the 
little giletiere who corrected Colline's proofs and never 
appeared, meant so much more than Lorry or Victorine. 

214 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

So long as their attachment lasted they made a home 
out of the barest garret, doing for their men those 
thousand little things which men are too lazy or pre- 
occupied to do for themselves. Besides, they opened 
a field for the exercise of unselfishness — a valuable 
service in itself. In this connexion I need only cite 
one delightful little story, to which I have already 
referred, entitled " La Toilette des Graces," an idyll 
which no afterthought can spoil. It tells how 
Rodolphe, Marcel, and Schaunard, having earned a 
little money by making their respective arts serve the 
humblest of commercial purposes, decided to surprise 
their mistresses by giving them new dresses. One fine 
morning Mimi, Musette, and Phemie were awakened 
by the entry of a procession headed by Schaunard, in 
a new coat of golden nankeen, playing a horn, and close 
behind him a shopman bringing samples. They nearly 
went mad with joy. Mimi jumped like a young kid, 
waving a pretty scarf ; Musette, with each hand in a 
little green boot, threw her arms round Marcel's neck 
and clapped the boots like cymbals ; as for Phemie, she 
could only sob " Ah, mon Alexandre, mon Alexandre ! " 
The choice was made, the bills discharged, and it v/as 
announced to the dames that they must have their 
new dresses ready for a day in the country on the 
morrow. That was a trifle ; for sixteen hours they 
cut and stitched, and when next day the Angelus 
sounded from the neighbouring church they were 

215 



VIE DE BOHEME 



already taking their last look into the looking-glass. 
Only Ph6mie had a little sorrow. " I like the green 
grass and the little birds," she said, " but one meets 
nobody in the country. Suppose we made our excursion 
on the boulevard." But they went to Fontenay-aux- 
Roses instead, and when they returned late at night 
there were only six francs left. " What shall we do 
with it ? " asked Marcel. " Invest it in the funds," 
said Schaunard. 

There are, doubtless, artistic coteries to-day in whose 
existence parallels may be found to the " Scenes de la 
Vie de Boh^me," but reproduction is impossible, for 
Murger's Bohemia, no less than la Boheme galante, 
was conditioned by its time. The conditions include 
a Paris of provincial narrowness, greater simplicity 
together with less conspicuous uniformity in ordinary 
life, less elaborate amusements, no Montmartre cafes, 
no swamping proletariat beside whose moeurs d' Apaches 
the eccentricities of Bohemia seem mild and un- 
important, a tiny fraction of the present opportunities 
for advertisement and publicity, and a lower standard, 
perhaps, of general education. To these one other 
condition may be added — the existence of Musette and 
Mimi, who were the last of the griseites. Murger himself, 
in a passage which I cannot do better than quote in 
the original, points out clearly their transitoriness : 

" Ces jolies filles moitie abeilles, moitie cigales, qui 
ti availlaient en chantant toute la semaine, ne de- 

216 




A Grisette 



SCHAUNARD AND COMPANY 

mandaient a Dieu qu'un peu de soleil le dimanche, 
faisaient vulgairement I'amour avec le coeur, et se 
jetaient quelquefois par la fenetre. Race disparue 
maintenant, grace a la generation actuelle des jeunes 
gens : generation corrompue et corruptrice, mais par- 
dessus tout vaniteuse, sotte et brutale. Pour le plaisir 
de faire de mechants paradoxes, ils ont raille ces 
pauvres filles a propos de leurs mains mutilees par les 
saintes cicatrices du travail, et elles n'ont bientot plus 
gagne assez pour s'acheter de la pate d'amandes. 
Peu a peu ils sont parvenus a leur inoculer leur vanity 
et leur sottise, et c'est alors que la grisette a disparu. 
C'est alors que naquit la lorette." 

The grisette made love for love : like a wild rose, 
she had to be plucked, and when men came to prefer 
buying bouquets in shops, she naturally died away. 
Money already tainted Bohemia, even here, in its heart. 
The opportunity of luxury tempted both Mimi and 
Musette to be unfaithful, but since caprice was ever 
stronger with them than self-interest they were not 
undeserving to be called the last of the grisettes. They 
were necessary adjuncts to Bohemia, and satisfactory 
adjuncts, in spite of their caprices, for the last thing 
which Bohemian man required was the Bohemian or — 
to use an obsolete phrase — the " emancipated " woman. 
Too ignorant to meet their lovers, even had they wished, 
upon their own ground, they held their place by keep- 
ing to their natural advantage, the woman's desire to 
please. So they passed through life, making the feast 

217 



VIE DE BOHEME 



more festive and the fast less desolate, filling a void and 
mending a sorrow as light-heartedly as they darned a 
sock or patched a ragged coat. Mimi and Musette 
were the true counterparts of Rodolphe and Marcel, 
and it is with regret that we see them disappear into 
an epilogue of prosperity and propriety. Yet it was 
all they could do, for what I have called the Bohemia 
of common mortality became dangerous long before 
the age of thirty years. Rodolphe could not have 
written in middle age to Marcel as Bouchardy did to 
Theophile Gautier ; only hypocritically could he have 
said "nous etions ivres du beau." Murger escapes any 
false effect of that kind in his conclusion : 

" ' We are done for, old fellow,' says Marcel, ' we are 
dead and buried. Youth only comes once ! Where 
are you dining to-night ? ' 

" ' If you like,' answered Rodolphe, ' we will go and 
dine for twelve sous at our old restaurant in the Rue 
du Four, where the plates are of village earthenware, 
and where we were always so hungry when we had 
finished eating.' 

" ' Good heavens, no. I don't mind looking back at 
the past, but it shall be across a bottle of decent wine 
and seated in a good arm-chair. It is no use, I'm 
corrupted. I only care now for what is good ! ' " 



218 



X 

MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

Si on excepte quelques natures fortement trempees qui 
se tirerent des impasses de la Boheme, le reste fut con- 
damne a vivre difficilement en face d'un ideal home ei 
sans avenir. Ni etudes, ni loisirs, ni aisances ne per- 
mettaient a ces aspirants a Vart de s'elever et de conquerir 

un nom. 

Champfleury : 
" Souvenirs et Portraits de Jeiinesse " 

In order to catch at a glance the result of a lapse of 
years I lingered in the last chapter over Rodolphe, 
Mimi, and their friends, figures drawn from the moving 
scene of contemporary life, yet snatched from the 
changes of time as permanently as those on Keats's 
Grecian urn. The " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " show, 
as it seems to me, more clearly than any other kind 
of record, the decadence of Bohemia, regarding the 
degree of its approach to an ideal of complete artistic 
existence, since the great days that followed 1830. 
This might, indeed, be a warrant for not returning to 
more documentary facts at all, but there are always 
those to be considered who view Fiction as a sprite so far 
divorced from actuality that they are unable to place 

219 



VIE DE BOHEME 



any trust in her indications. The teller of stories, in 
their apprehension, is always on the look-out for a good 
effect, to which end he will minimize the essential and 
magnify the unessential, distorting sober fact at the 
call of his individual imagination. They are the people 
who read novels, as they say, for relaxation, while find- 
ing wisdom alone in biographies and memoirs bristling 
with dates and packed with quotations. The question, 
" What, after all, is sober fact ? " is sufficient to put 
them into confusion, but to propound that ancient 
problem would be here beside the mark, for in a book 
that honestly professes to be as sober in fact as any it 
would be unbecoming unduly to press the point on 
behalf of fiction. The warrant, therefore, will be allowed 
to pass, and we return to those tales which men have 
told about themselves and their friends under the names 
which they bore at baptism, duly signed and dated. 
Such information as they give concerning the later years 
of Bohemia is, at best, fragmentary, but the fragments 
have some appearance of falling together in the light of 
Murger's picture. A more diligent research might have 
produced a more detailed record, but it may be ques- 
tioned whether the total effect would have been any 
clearer. There were scores of obscure persons in 
Bohemia, but their daily uprising and lying-down were 
not so very widely different. At least this may be 
asserted, that after a certain number of facts it is safer 
to use the imagination for the rest. 

220 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

Murger and his friends were the legitimate successors 
of la Boheme galante, and in view of their fictitious 
counterparts already introduced the main interest of 
this chapter lies with them. Yet before they appear 
there are some byways of Bohemia that call for in- 
spection as an illustration and a contrast. Bohemia 
was, of course, always bordered on one side by the 
student life of the Quartier Latin, the freedom and 
licence of which were both different and older in origin, 
going back to the days of the schoolmen, when indigent 
scholars of all nations filled the great university cities 
of Europe, forming in each a picturesque but turbulent 
community. Even in most prosaic days the students 
of Paris have kept up the medieval tradition, but par- 
ticular manifestations would naturally be influenced by 
the manners of the day. It is, therefore, not surprising 
that the student quarter was profoundly affected by the 
Romantic movement, and reflected its battles and its 
extravagances with a hilarious distortion. The motley 
world of the Quartier Latin and those who, though no 
longer students, remained attached to it had their 
"local colour," their Gothic enthusiasms, and their 
orgies. They had dining clubs with fantastic names, 
such as " Les 45 jolis cochons," which indulged in some- 
thing very like bump-suppers, with loud singing in the 
streets, window-breaking, and practical joking to follow. 
The campaign of " Hernani " was imitated in the Salle 
Chanteraine — a theatre for amateurs — where there was 

221 



VIE DE BOHEME 



nightly a fracas with fisticuffs between the various 
factions. Elaborate farces were organized to mystify 
the good people of Paris, of which Maxime du Camp 
gives a good example in his " Souvenirs Litteraires." 
It was called " La grande chevauchee de la cotelette aux 
cornichons." Thirty young men, dressed in velvet 
waistcoats and nankeen jackets, with long hair and 
beards, headed by a certain young teacher of history 
waving a stick, marched solemnly in serried single file 
with a halting step, dangling their arms at the same 
time, from the Place Pigalle over the Pont Royal, crying 
in unison, " Une deux, une deux, le cholera, le cholera ! " 
At the end of the Pont Royal they turned round in a 
body and shouted, " Connaissez-vous le thermom^tre 
de I'ingenieur Chevalier ? " Solemnly facing about 
again, they proceeded as before to Sainte-Mande, where 
they lunched off pork cutlets. 

The special home of the wildest jokers and most 
desperate caricatures of the new spirit was a certain 
tumble-down barrack. No. 9 Rue Childebert, a street 
on the south side of that beautiful old church Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres, and now merged in the Boulevard 
Saint -Germain. This house, familiarly called " La 
Childebert," was five or six stories high and thoroughly 
decayed, for its owner, a Madame Legendre, refused to 
carry out any repairs. She was justified in this attitude 
to some extent by the fact that few of her tenants paid 
any rent. Indeed, according to one witness, no man in 

222 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

his senses would have paid any rent for a room upon the 
top floor from 1837 onwards. One student, however, 
an ingenious fellow called Lepierre, who both lived on 
the top floor and paid his rent, succeeded in forcing the 
stingy lady to repair the roof. Having been drenched 
one night during a hard storm, he took his revenge by 
removing a portion of his flooring, and hiring all the 
peripatetic water-carriers that could be found to pour 
water down the hole. The concierge remonstrated, but 
in vain, and Madame Legendre was sent for in hot haste. 
When she arrived in a cab she was gaily serenaded by 
the inhabitants, and on proceeding to the flooded room 
she was horrified to find Lepierre in the costume of 
Adam before the Fall, who claimed a right, he said, to 
have a bath at his own convenience. Madame Legendre 
fled, but the roof was repaired. The gay desperadoes 
of La Childebert were capable of carrying through any 
charge, howsoever lurid. One of the most successful 
was known as " le nez de Bouginier." Bouginier was 
an artist, the size of whose nose inspired his friend 
Fourreau with the idea of an exaggerated caricature in 
which this feature was made enormous. A stencil was 
cut and copied, and for many days Bouginier's nose 
appeared on all the walls in Paris. It is even alleged 
that two parties of students, about to travel in the East 
and wishing to meet on the voyage, hit on the simple 
plan of following Bouginier's nose. The party starting 
first took a stencil with them, so that the second party, 

223 



VIE DE BOHEME 



leaving a fortnight later, were able to track them to 
Marseilles, Malta, Alexandria, and Suez. In a certain 
medallion in the Passage du Caire, just south of the 
Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle, Bouginier's nose is still im- 
mortalized. La Childebert was always " up to " some- 
thing, but a certain fancy-dress conversazione completely 
convulsed the neighbourhood. The schools of art and 
poetry dressed according to their views, and by universal 
consent the Romantics, for all they could do in pour- 
points, doublets, and general local colour, were easily 
beaten by the Classicists. Romulus and Remus with 
their wolf and Hercules with the Nemean lion created a 
furore ; so great was the real consternation of the district 
at the apparition of these wild beasts that the com- 
missary of police had to intervene. The wolf and the 
lion suffered themselves to be led with great docility to 
his office, where they turned out to be a great Dane and 
a mastiff respectively, painted and padded with dia- 
bolical cleverness. 

La Childebert was strongly represented in a revel- 
lers' club called " Les Badouillards," that flourished 
between 1835 and 1838. In "Paris Anecdote" Privat 
d'Anglemont, who is the chief authority on the Childe- 
bertian doings, describes the qualifications of a perfect 
Badouillard. He had to pass a regular test before 
entering the bacchic brotherhood ; he had to be strong 
and agile, a clever and ready boxer, fencer, and wrestler, 
he must have proved his courage in several encounters, 

224 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

shown a fine taste in choreographic fantasy at the 
Chaumi^re and an abiHty to engage in a duel of slang 
with any chance person, and have sworn eternal feud 
against the sleep and peace of mind of all bourgeois. 
The initiation was a solemn and trying ceremony. It 
began with a copious dinner, followed by a ceaseless 
absorption of various liquors till the time came for going 
to the ball. Here the candidate stayed all night, be- 
having as outrageously as possible. He then adjourned 
without sleep to breakfast, and passed the rest of the 
day in the cafes of the Quartier Latin, drinking, playing 
billiards, and flirting. At night the programme was 
repeated, and if by the third night he had accepted every 
challenge, never fallen asleep, nor tumbled under any 
table, he was allowed to seek his bed a perfect Badouil- 
lard. 

For all its light-hearted absurdities La Childebert was 
not Bohemia, for its existence belonged rather to that 
of irresponsible students than of artists. I only mention 
it by way of contrast, as I now mention again Privat 
dAnglemont, the author of " Paris Inconnu " and 
" Paris Anecdote," legendary as a Bohemian, but of a 
very different type. These two curious and valuable 
books are a complete study of the seamy side of Paris 
during the latter part of Louis Philippe's reign. The 
life of the porters in the Halles, the chijfonniers, and all 
the pliers of obscure trades, with their customs, their 
dwellings, and their manners, is most faithfully repro- 

225 p 



VIE DE BOHEME 



duced in them in a manner which could only have been 
made possible by a complete identification of the author 
with the subjects of his observation. Such, in fact, was 
the lifework of Privat d'Anglemont, a Creole born in 
Guadeloupe. He became the legendary noctambule of 
Paris, realizing, as Charles Mouselet says in his preface 
to " Paris Anecdote," the popular idea of a Bohemian — 
that is, simply an eccentric vagabond. In the sense of 
the word as used in this book, he was not a Bohemian 
at all, for, though he wrote articles and books upon his 
experiences, he was in no sense an artist, nor was he 
striving to make his life conformable to artistic liberty. 
He was animated simply by a gipsy passion for roaming, 
combined with a taste for mystery and romancing. 
Faithful as his books were, he hardly ever spoke the 
truth : twenty times he told Theodore de Banville the 
history of his life, and each time it was different. Still, 
he merits a word here on account of his reputation as the 
complete Bohemian, a reputation increased by his being 
an easy peg on which to hang any fantastic story that 
came into a journalist's brain. Theodore de Banville, 
who first met him in 1841 and, according to Monselet, 
idealized him absurdly, gives some curious recollections 
of him in ■■' Mes Souvenirs." He was a handsome man, 
dark, tall, and slender, rather resembling the elder 
Dumas. He passed most of his life wandering about 
the low quarters of Paris in complete poverty, often 
begging a meal from one of the cabaretiers of the Halles, 

226 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

who all loved him. Yet, de Banville avers, he was not 
really unprovided for, since at irregular intervals a 
relative used to send him about £200 from America in 
gold pieces. But Privat d'Anglemont preferred to live 
without money, so that he never hesitated in getting 
rid of this burden as soon as possible by standing a 
dinner to all the poor and hungry women he could find 
in the tiny inn called the " Boeuf Enrage," at the 
bottom of the Rue de la Harpe. Like Gerard de 
Nerval, he would set out on a voyage at a moment's 
notice and without a moment's preparation, and such 
was his charm that he had affectionate friends in the 
lower quarters of many a French town. Once during 
his nightly wanderings he was stopped by some robbers. 
" But I'm Privat," he said, roaring with laughter. At 
which the robbers joined in the laugh, and invited him 
to supper. By a ruined hut they sat down to drink the 
best champagne in the light of the stars, to smoke, and 
to tell stories. Privat delighted his hosts, who invited 
him to meet them again ; but he shook his head, saying, 
" N'engageons pas I'avenir." 

Privat d'Anglemont, who eventually died of con- 
sumption, did little more than carry on the traditions 
of the " noctambules," less mischievously than their 
founder, Retif de la Bretonne, less modestly and artisti- 
cally than Gerard de Nerval, but so much more seriously 
than either of his predecessors that he left little scope 
for a new departure to his own successor, Alfred Delvau. 

^27 



VIE DE BO HEME 



He was not, in the truest sense, a Bohemian, though he 
led an existence ever bordering on the confines of 
Bohemia. The same may be said, in a more transitory 
sense, of Flaubert, the great renovator and refiner of 
Romanticism. Most of his life was spent in the country, 
but there was a short period when he came to study law 
in Paris, which, if it were not mentioned, might justify 
a challenge from readers familiar with " L'Education 
Sentimentale " or Maxime du Camp's " Souvenirs 
Litteraires." So far as the first of these books is con- 
cerned, little time need here be spent in finding relevant 
points of comparison. The last thing which Flaubert 
desired to portray in that depressing picture was an 
existence in any sense artistic. His hero is a provincial 
youth who, during his student days in Paris, drifts 
aimlessly and indolently through a variety of second- 
rate experiences in company with second-rate friends. 
Flaubert's own experiences are, no doubt, frequently 
worked into the material, but " L'Education Sentimen- 
tale " is nothing so cheap as autobiography served in a 
thin sauce of fiction. It is a novel in which the author 
has with the highest exercise of penetrative imagination 
treated what Mr. Henry James would call the " germ " 
— ^the dreary wastefulness, that is, of such a life in case 
of such a young man as Frederic Moreau, who with 
Madame Bovary is Flaubert's contribution to the 
pathology of le mat romantique. Flaubert himself, with 
all his excitability and extravagance, was of a much 

228 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

stronger stamp ; the strength of his artistic conviction 
saved him from all such flabbiness. He came to Paris 
to study law, but, having failed to pass his examination, 
returned to his home in 1843. If he had stayed he 
might easily have become one of the leading figures, 
certainly a powerful influence, in that Bohemia which 
Murger knew. Maxime du Camp, who made his ac- 
quaintance early in 1843, shows him as a young man 
living always at a high pitch with the flamboyant 
vitality that would have done no dishonour to the 
Impasse du Doyenne, so far was he from being the 
victim of Frederic's weak-kneed desolation. He passed 
his days in an alternation of prodigality and poverty, 
spending fifty francs on his dinner one day and feeding 
on a crust and a slab of chocolate the next. He lived 
in a kind of intellectual tornado, both frantic and noisy. 
He went into ecstasies over mediocre works in which he 
perceived beauties hidden from the rest of the world, 
but which he loved to point out stridently to his friends, 
intoning the prose, roaring the verse at the top of his 
voice, repeating incessantly any word which took his 
passionate fancy, and filling all the neighbourhood with 
his din. He would wake up a friend without com- 
punction at three in the morning to show him a moon- 
light effect on the Seine ; one moment he would be 
inventing sauces to make brill appetizing, and the next 
he would be plotting to smack Gustave Planche's face 
for having spoken slightingly of Victor Hugo. The 

229 



VIE DE BOHEME 



cenacle composed of Louis de Cormenin, Le Poitevin, 
Du Camp, and himself often dined at Dagneaux's, one 
of the better restaurants of the Quartier Latin, and 
stayed talking ceaselessly till the doors were closed. 
Their ambitions were as wild as their conversation ; 
Flaubert and Du Camp seriously determined to learn 
everything between the ages of twenty-one and thirty, 
to produce great works till forty, and then to retire into 
the country. Except for the fact that, according to his 
friend, Flaubert disdained the women whom his beauty 
attracted, this was a promising beginning for Bohemia. 
As the world knows, fate decreed otherwise, and he 
retired to develop in that close intellectual atmosphere 
with Louis Bouilhet and Du Camp, of which the latter 
says : " Living as we did, in solitude, we exchanged only 
the same set of ideas apart from all criticism, so that 
things in general lost their right proportion in our 
minds." 

Flaubert's life in the Rue de I'Est was, at best, only a 
tentative pathway in Bohemia, like one of those tracks 
in a suburb that give hope of leading somewhere, but 
change their mind en route. It is too small a digression 
to be distracting, and I entered upon it, among other 
reasons, because its little adventure coincides in date 
with those movements in the central market-place yet 
to be touched on. One more alley, however, must be 
taken on the way, for it is, indeed, only just off the 
market-place. The name upon its wall is that of Charles 

230 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

Baudelaire, a well-known figure whose exact relation to 
Bohemia is, nevertheless, not so easy to determine. He 
began very much in the manner of Flaubert, coming as 
a student to the Quartier Latin and residing at a not 
very strictly kept pension near the Pantheon between 
1839 and 1841, his eighteenth and his twentieth years. 
I need not repeat the distinction made between student 
life — das Burschenleben — and out-and-out Bohemianism. 
Baudelaire filled his days to their fullest extent, mixing 
together indiscriminately the enjoyments of student, 
dandy, and viveur, so far as his means allowed. It was 
only at the end of this time that his determination to 
take up literature scandalized his stepfather and caused 
his enforced sea voyage. When he returned in 1842 he 
had come of age and possessed a capital of 75,000 francs. 
He set about spending this money with a gusto and in a 
manner not unworthy of the golden age of Bohemia. 
He had various lodgings till he settled for two years in a 
beautiful apartment in the old Hotel Pimodan on the 
lie St. -Louis, where his conu:ade was the painter Boissard, 
a good artist who, as Gautier said, exhausted himself in 
enthusiasms, and in whose wonderful Louis XIV salon 
the society of hacMschiens met. Had Baudelaire been 
a true Bohemian at heart he might have instituted a 
second Boheme galante, but he was wanting in that 
simplicity and goodfellowship which are signal qualities 
in the Bohemian character. He wished to make his 
life, like his art, a study in exquisite intensity, so that 

231 



VIE DE BOHEME 



in the days of his splendour his mode of living was rather 
that of a " dandy " than anything else. He dressed 
with immense care, but in a bygone fashion ; he pursued 
every kind of sensation, frequented every kind of society, 
and became the leader of a set who carefully cultivated 
eccentricity for its own sake, an eccentricity too pose 
to serve as a type of Bohemian manners. To make 
himself a subject of astonishment was his chief amuse- 
ment, to which end his devices — such as entering a 
restaurant with a friend and feigning to begin a story 
with the loud exordium : " After I had murdered my 

poor father " — were innumerable. So much may 

be said with a certain pity or amusement, but it must 
also be admitted that a certain refinement, both social 
and intellectual, kept him from associating himself 
entirely with the not over-discriminating Bohemia of his 
generation. It is all the more fair to say this because 
after 1844, when his stepfather got a guardian ap- 
pointed to take charge of his remaining capital and he 
was reduced to eking out a reduced income by journal- 
ism, with all its attendant disappointments and hard- 
ships, he chose with some discrimination the extent to 
which he would throw in his lot with the Bohemian life 
for which he had by that time every qualification. He 
became a friend of Murger and many other complete 
Bohemians, and there is a story of his asking the original 
of Schaunard to dine and giving him a piece of Brie 
cheese and two bottles of claret, asking him to imagine 

232 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

that he was enjoying the dessert after a good dinner. 
Yet his real intimates were a band of young men, 
Theodore de Banville, Charles Monselet, Villiers de 
risle Adam, and Leconte de Flsle, who chose to main- 
tain a certain amount of order in the midst of eccen- 
tricity and found boisterous joviality less to their taste 
than the more delicate affectations of wit. Here again 
I hold no brief for the complete Bohemians. They had 
their compensating virtues, but it is hardly doubtful 
that Baudelaire and his friends were the better educated 
and the more truly artistic set of the two. This, 
perhaps, was the greatest tragedy of Bohemia's decline, 
that its spiritual distinction faded with its material 
well-being. At any rate, for a combination of reasons, 
laudable and the reverse, Baudelaire's set was not 
Bohemia, and if, as I leave them, I may insist par- 
ticularly on one of the less laudable reasons, it is that 
pose, which is another form of convention, must by the 
very conception of Bohemia be excluded from its 
characteristics. Nadar hits the difference when, in his 
curious little book on Baudelaire, which is written in 
an idiom describable as a French version of that ellip- 
tical quaintness associated with our own Pink 'Un, he 
writes : " Avec ces epileptiques, combien loin du sans 
fa9on tout bonhomme, de la simplesse a la bonne 
franquette de mon autre bande de Boh^me, ' la bande 
de Murger ' et de notre ' Society des buveurs 
d'eau.' . . ." 

233 



VIE DE BOHEME 



We return, then, to the author of " Scenes de la Vie 
de Boheme " at the end of a rather circuitous route. In 
speaking of the Bohemia which he immortaHzed I have 
called it, in distinction from certain modifications or 
superficial resemblances, the central market-place, but 
no more need be sought in that phrase than an effort 
to represent it by a handy image as exhibiting the 
main civic qualities and manners implied in the generic 
name. Compared with earlier days, a far less proud and 
bustling burgherdom trod its rather muddy paving- 
stones, for it had suffered as some agricultural centre 
when railways were beginning. Yet any pride of 
succession which they may have had was legitimately 
theirs, for, if they were less materially and intellectually 
endowed, if the peculiarly happy circumstances of their 
civic foundation had passed to make their ultimate 
disruption certain under the changed conditions of all 
that is included in social development, they still pre- 
served the Bohemian character, with its simplicity, 
gaiety, humour, and courage. To labour the point 
further is unnecessary, for if it is not already clear, the 
fault is too remote to be here corrected. In the " Scenes 
de la Vie de Boheme " all the daily comedy and tragedy 
of this Bohemia of common mortality finds expression : 
the life there described so intimately and humorously 
stands or falls by its artistic truth, to which 
no amount of possible documentary corroboration 
adds an iota. Nevertheless, the professed concession 

234 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

to a desire for ascertainable " facts " with which 
this chapter opened must be made, at the risk of seem- 
ing to expose the vanity of the researcher as the real 
object of indulgence. Since, in the garrulous world of 
to-day, nobody can make the least incursion into the 
public eye, much less produce a successful book or 
pictm-e, without the appearance of a crop of " personal 
notes," so Murger's picture may be taken for granted, 
and what follows may appear in the light of " personal 
notes," claiming no more connexion than a general 
relation to the picture. 

Murger * was no son of a landed proprietor nor even 
sprung from a middle-class family, as most Bohemians 
naturally were, for the whole life of Bohemia presupposes 
a more or less literary education seldom vouchsafed to 
the children of lower social order. His father was a 
German tailor in the Rue des Trois Freres, who wished, 
not without reason, that his son should succeed him in 
his trade. Murger's early education was therefore 

* The following account combines much of the information given 
in three books: Champfleury's " Souvenirs et Portraits de Jeunesse" ; 
" Henri Murger et la Boheme," by A. Delvau ; and the curious Uttle 
"Histoire de Murger pour servir d I'histoire de la Vraie Boheme," 
par trois Buveurs d'Eau, the anonymous authors of which are known 
to be his friends, Lelioux, Nadar, and Noel. It is in the last named 
that some of Murger's letters are given. There is a certain amount 
of conflict between the dates given in these different books, but since 
they are all equally likely to be inaccurate, I have chosen to ignore 
the discrepancies, which are not very important. 

235 



VIE DE BOHEME 



confined to the rudiments, and his deficiencies in that 
respect were a burden upon him all his life. The career 
of a tailor, for all that, aroused his utmost aversion ; 
through his two friends, Emile and Pierre Bisson, who 
became clerks, he acquired a violent taste for poetry, 
with the composition of which he judged the shears 
incompatible. His father took the rebellion hardly, 
but got him a place, since he liked pens and paper so 
much, as errand-boy to an avoue, an occupation in 
which he continued to cultivate his poetic inclinations. 
When seventeen years old, in 1839, through the interest 
of M. de Jouy, a critic and member of the Academy, 
he was appointed secretary to a Russian diplomat, M. 
de Tolstoi. His salary was only 40 francs a month, out 
of which he had to pay a small pension to his father for 
board and lodging; still, he was happy. His duties 
were very light, and his employer, who also had a 
literary turn, took a certain amount of interest in him 
and gave him occasional presents of money. During 
the next two years he made the acquaintance of that 
group of friends on which he drew for his stories of 
Bohemia, and experienced two love affairs. The first 
object of his affections was " la cousine Angele," the 
heroine of a chapter in " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," 
in which Rodolphe in his draughty garret, by dint of 
burning his great tragedy in the stove, warms himself 
sufficiently to write the commemorative poem for the 
tombstone of a defunct bourgeois, buying with the 

236 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

proceeds a bunch of white violets for his disdainful 
cousin. The second was a certain Marie, who eventually 
ran away with one of his friends — a tragedy which he 
relates in " Scenes de la Vie de Jeunesse." By this 
time he had become a thoroughly developed Bohemian, 
intolerant of all restraint. He left his father's home, 
and even for a time gave up his post with M. de Tolstoi. 
It was then that Henry Murger's Bohemia was 
definitely formed, a society described by one of them as 
" ce demi-quarteron de pontes a I'outrance, mais ab- 
solument inedits, reunis dans un tas, sans vestes ni 
semelles, ne doutant de rien, ni de leur lendemain, ni 
de leur genie, ni du genie de leur voisin, ni de I'editeur 
a venir, ni du succes, ni des belles dames, ni de la fortune 
— de rien, si ce n'est de leur diner du soir, trop con- 
vaincus, d'ailleurs, quant a la question de leur dejeuner 
du matin." Their names were the brothers Bisson, 
Lelioux, Noel, Nadar, Guilbert, Vastine, the brothers 
Desbrosses, Cabot, Villain, Tabar, Chintreuil, Pottier, 
Karol, Schann, and Vernet. They called themselves 
the " Societe des Buveurs d'Eau," but they were by no 
means so quixotic as Murger draws that society in 
" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." It was simply a 
union for mutual help, the rules of which did not 
bar any commercial occupation. The members lived 
as they pleased or as they could, and water was only a 
compulsory beverage at the official monthly meetings, 
when they all submitted their work to the criticism 

237 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of their brethren. Their ordinary occupations were 
various enough. Noel gave drawing lessons ; another 
was a judicial stenographer ; Jacques Desbrosses, nick- 
named Christ — the original of " Jacques D " in 

" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " — and Cabot drew designs 
for monumental masons ; the other Desbrosses, called 
Gothique, earned a little money by painting door-signs 
for midwives ; Schann, the original of Schaunard, was 
a musician, and Wallon, Murger's Colline, who joined 
the society later, eked out his barren philosophy by 
giving lessons ; Chintreuil, afterwards to become a 
well-known artist, was then a bookseller's assistant, 
with Champfleury for his colleague ; and Nadar, other- 
wise F. Tournachon, whom Alphonse Karr describes as 
" a kind of giant with immense legs, long arms, a long 
body with a shaggy head of red hair above it, and staring, 
intelligent, flashing eyes," was the poet and journalist 
who became a celebrated balloonist and an immensely 
successful photographer. His caricature hangs in the 
section of the Musee Carnavalet devoted to early 
aeronautics in Paris. 

We may take it from Murger that the shortcomings 
of fortune were borne with humorous fortitude on the 
credit of her occasional smiles, but there was no illusion 
about the privations. Nadar, Champfleury, and Delvau 
all agree that a bitter wind blew upon them. It was 
not so bad, in Nadar's opinion, so long as they lived more 
or less together, and this they did for a short time in an 

238 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

old house by the Barriere d'Enfer, which looked like a 
farm with a farmyard inhabited by hens. Champfleury 
made their acquaintance at this time in a little dairy 
where they sometimes took their meals. It was a 
strange society. Some wore blouses, others Phrygian 
caps, while the brothers Desbrosses had large sky-blue 
overcoats, turned back with pink satin and fastened by 
huge mother-of-pearl buttons. These two brothers were 
the originators of the colony at the Barriere d'Enfer, and 
its chiefs "surtoutparleurmis^re." They harboured some 
of the others, who found a resting-place for the night in 
two hammocks slung in their small room. Murger was 
among them, the art of painting being for the moment 
his preoccupation. Fine days were spent lounging on 
the roof and contemplating the then rural surroundings. 
Anybody arriving with five francs in his pocket would 
have been regarded as a millionaire ; indeed, they were 
happy enough when they could afford a few fried 
potatoes for dinner. Yet they would not have ex- 
changed their hovel for the Garden of Eden, and they 
fed upon their dreams with inexhaustible confidence. 
Privation was still worse when the society broke up. 
One Bohemian lived a whole week on raw potatoes 
brought by his poor mother from the country ; another 
went three days without food ; another passed a winter 
shirtless in a calico blouse and a lasting waistcoat ; 
another, as a device to keep himself warm, used to carry 
a log of wood up to his high garret, drop it over the 

239 



VIE DE BO HEME 



banisters, and run down to fetch it again ; an older 
Bohemian who heard of this manoeuvre exclaimed : 
" Spendthrift, why the log ? " 

Henry Murger himself, who had abandoned painting 
and definitely adopted the vocation of a sentimental 
poet, went to live with his friend Lelioux, first in the 
Rue Montholon and then in that garret at £4 a year in 
the Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne where Rodolphe's 
friends " drank badly filtered water out of eclectic 
earthenware " at his Wednesday receptions. He had 
resumed his employment with M. de Tolstoi, but he 
was too improvident to keep out of misery for many 
days together. More than once he became so ill with 
purpura, an eruptive disease due in his case to the abuse 
of coffee, that he had to go to the hospital. Some 
extracts from his letters during these years will give 
an idea of his destitution. On December 14, 1841, he 
writes : 

" Les Desbrosses passent la moitie de la journee a 
ne pas manger et I'autre a crever de froid. Les chats 
se mefient d'eux, et, en fait de cheminee, ils ne possedent 
que leurs pipes — bien des fois sans tabac." 

March 6, 1842 : 

" Sans le Christ, qui m'a donne a diner et a dejeuner 
quatre fois la semaine, je ne sais pas ce que je serais 
devenu. Ce gar5on n'a pas vole son surnom." 

April 25, 1843: 

" Nous crevons de faim ; nous sommes au bout du 

240 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

rouleau. II faut decidement se faire un trou quelque 
part ou se faire sauter la cervelle." 

March 17, 1844 : 

" De Charybde en Sylla, mon cher ami ! La miser e 
est plus horrible que jamais chez moi et autour de moi. 
Ma place au Commerce n'a pas eu de suite ; je suis de 
nouveau sur le pave. C'est horrible ! Aussi le 
decouragement m'a-t-il pris et tout a fait submerge. 
Encore quelques jours de cette position et je me fais 
sauter la cervelle ou je m'engage dans la marine. — 
Pardonne-moi ces plaintes ! C'est le cri de laj^n." 

Like Colline, he punned even in his misery. 

Letters of this doleful nature do not throw a very gay 
light upon the Bohemian market-place, where there was 
high competition for a small custom and prices ruled 
low. They contain a truth which no consideration of 
Bohemia can omit, but it was not the whole truth, as 
Murger himself testifies in his stories. It was a life of 
good days as well as bad, even in the leanest years, or 
" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " could never have been 
written. Murger himself had already begun to hand 
some small wares over his counter. Rodolphe, the 
poet, it will be remembered, did not disdain to edit a 
small fashion paper called L'Echarpe d'Iris, in which, 
to Colline's extravagant delight, he inserted the philo- 
sopher's articles on metaphysics. This was a direct touch 
from life, for Bohemia in more than one instance lent 
its pen to trade. There was a certain Charles Vincent 

241 Q 



VIE DE BOHEME 



who edited two papers of the leather trade, Le Moniteur 
de la Cordonnerie and the Halle aux Cuirs. In his 
editorial capacity he retained all the new pairs of boots 
and shoes sent in by advertisers, and with these he often 
paid his contributors. Murger in 1843 edited Le Moni- 
teur de la Chapellerie, the industrial fruits of which were, 
no doubt, less profitable, but even a few hats and a few 
francs a month were of considerable value in Bohemia. 
They were, of course, nothing like the editorial profits 
of to-day. Receipts were extremely precarious, when, 
even on a well- written literary paper like L' Artiste, the 
application of a contributor for payment caused a con- 
siderable rummaging in tills and pockets before twenty- 
five francs could be iounddans la boutique.* Yet small 
change was enough to stand a Bohemian holiday, and 
Murger's gloomy letters must be discounted by balancing 
them against Rodolphe's expedition to Versailles with 
Mademoiselle Laure after he had ransacked Paris for 
the five francs necessary to do that expedition in suffi- 
cient style. It would be absurd to suppose that Murger, 
with Nadar, Schann, and a grisette or two, did not some- 
times invade the Chaumiere in a joyous band or wake 
from sleep the serious inhabitants of the Rue de la Tour 
d'Auvergne. 

At the same time, howsoever the balance of pleasure 
and pain be struck, it is clear that happy memories 

* This appears in Charles Monselet's diary printed in the memoir 
by A. Monselet. 

242 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

of this Bohemia could only remain to those for whom 
it was only a necessary stage in life and not a death-trap. 
This tendency to poetic melancholy and the painful 
slowness with which he worked might have caused 
Henry Murger to sink for ever like many of his friends. 
He was saved, in the first instance, by Champfleury, 
who, when he was finally sold up m the Rue de la Tour 
d'Auvergne, took him to live in the Rue de Vaugirard 
and induced him to abandon poetry for prose. Jules 
Husson-Fleury, who was born at Laon in 1821 and 
became a well-known writer under the name of Champ- 
fiem-y, a great collector of prints and porcelain, on which 
he wrote some valuable monographs, and finally the 
director of the Sevres manufactory, passed through 
Bohemia during the same years as Murger, and in his 
" Souvenirs et Portraits de Jeunesse " records many 
lively experiences. He first came to Paris as shop- 
boy and assistant in a bookseller's shop where, as I have 
already said, the future painter Chintreuil was in the 
same service. Champfleury lost his place for reading 
the books on his errands instead of delivering them to 
the customers, but during this year 1839 he saw some- 
thing of Murger and the colony of the brothers Des- 
brosses. He then left Paris for a year or two, and 
returned when Murger was living in the Rue de la Tour 
dAuvergne, though the acquaintance was not at once 
renewed. It was approximately in 1845 that they went 
to live together in the Rue de Vaugirard, after Champ- 

243 



VIE DE BOHEME 



fleury had met Murger again in the hospital. They 
did not by any means leave Bohemia ; in fact, there is 
reason to suppose that to some extent the character 
of Marcel was drawn from Champfleury. They wrote 
a vaudeville together which was never accepted, and 
attacked the difficult art of writing stories. Murger 
was able to place some of his work in L^ Artiste, the 
editor of which was Arsene Houssaye, and in 1846 the 
" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme " began to come out in 
Le Corsaire. They were poorly enough paid at the time, 
but their dramatisation by Barriere in 1849 proved a 
huge success, and from that time onwards Murger settled 
down to more serious work and a less disorderly life. 

But I am anticipating Champfieury's memories of 
the last days of Bohemia. In his view, at any rate so 
far as Murger and he were concerned, the indolence of 
Bohemia has been much exaggerated. " In reality," 
he says, " work was the basis of our life." They had a 
joint library, to which Murger supplied the poets and 
Champfleury the prose-writers. The latter read vora- 
ciously to educate himself, but Mm^ger chiefly thumbed 
the pages of Victor Hugo and Alfred de Musset ; he 
took regular doses of Shakespeare in a French transla- 
tion, traces of which appear in " Scenes de la Vie de 
Boheme," but he had little knowledge of other classic 
authors. He worked with extraordinary difficulty; a 
page of prose cost him a night's work and intense in- 
tellectual labour, for " Murger n'etait plein que de son 

244 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

coeur." Champfleury, for all his friendship, was a 
shrewd critic when he observed that his whole vision 
was introspective : " He swept the same chimney so 
often that in the end the plaster came off and the bricks 
fell down " ; or again : " Besides his little library, his 
belongings consisted of worn white gloves, a velvet 
mask, and a withered bouquet hung on the walls. All 
Murger's work lies in his memories — some faded flowers, 
a meeting at the Bal de I'Opera, a heart-ache." 

Certain disorders of Bohemia are not excused by 
Champfleury, particularly that of not paying debts. 
His friend Fauchery, an engraver who afterwards went 
to seek his fortune in Australia, induced him at first to 
accept the Bohemian code, which was : 

1. Never to pay one's rent. 

2. To conduct one's removals by the window. 

3. To consider all bootmakers, tailors, hatters, and 
restaurant -keepers as members of Mr. Credit's family. 

Some went so far as to maintain that after a clandes- 
tine removal through the window no piece of furniture 
which had passed the gutter in the middle of the street 
could be reclaimed by the proprietor. This less credit- 
able attitude of Bohemia, which is sufficiently prominent 
in "Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," was repudiated with 
some shame in after years by many of Murger's friends. 
In the book Rodolphe pays his debts when he settles 
down, and we have it on the authority of Delvau that 
Schann (Schaunard), who eventually kept a respectable 

245 



VIE DE BOHEME 



toy-shop, and the original of Musette, who married a 
chemist, took in their later days a more usual view of 
money matters. Champfieury confesses that he himself 
was saved by an amiable girl, who for a time became 
the divinity of his garret. Unlike Mimi and Musette, 
she had a horror of debt and vagabondage and inspired 
him with a pleasure in his own humble hearth, so that 
he gradually detached himself from his comrades, who 
were for the most part so ill provided for in the matter 
of lodging that their chief workroom was a cafe, where 
they arrived at nine in the morning, to leave at midnight. 
They read the newspapers, played at dominoes or tric- 
trac, and occasionally did a little work. Fauchery, in 
particular, caused considerable surprise among the 
regular customers by bringing his whole engraving 
apparatus and solemnly setting to work. Some respect 
certainly is due to the proprietors of these little eating- 
houses who so gallantly put up with and gave credit to 
this noisy and not very profitable clientele, who were 
capable of perpetrating all the outrages committed by 
Rodolphe and the rest in their constant asylum, the 
Cafe Momus. 

Champfieury says little of the amiable goddess who 
rescued him from vagabondage except that she left him, 
like Mimi, because she grew tired of cheap muslin, but in 
another chapter he gives some account of two other 
idols of Bohemia whom he calls Mademoiselle M. and 
Mademoiselle P. Mademoiselle M. was dark and merry, 

246 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

a thorough coquette who laughed at wounded hearts ; 
Mademoiselle P. was fair and melancholy, always in 
tears for the last lover who had left her. A generation 
of Bohemians were their lovers, poets and painters 
especially. As the generation grew up the divinities 
grew wiser, and Mademoiselle M. was the first to do a 
little mental arithmetic. For her own friends who had 
a future the days of idleness were over ; there was no 
future for her either among the stranded remainder or 
in a new generation. Accordingly she departed to more 
profitable spheres. Mademoiselle P. stayed a little 
longer, still loving her poets, and weeping toutes les 
larmes de son corps to find that she had a too formidable 
rival in the desire for fame which watched at the door 
of her lovers' hearts, till finally she found a worthy man 
who was no poet to love her and eventually to marry 
her. Mademoiselle M., meanwhile, had made by her 
conquests quite a respectable capital, with which one 
fine day she set sail for Algiers. Unhappily she left 
Marseilles in a steamer which sank with all hands, so 
that she and her gold came to rest at the bottom of the 
sea — a sad story from which Champfieury in an un- 
worthy moment makes some show of drawing a moral. 
Neither of these young women can be identified with 
Murger's heroines. Musette, as I have said, married a 
chemist ; Phemie Teinturiere, Schaunard's choice, was 
according to Delvau, a not over-respectable person 
resembling a heroine of Paul de Kock ; as for Mimi, 

247 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Delvau asserts that Murger loved her while he wrote the 
" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," and that her life and 
wretched death are matters of fact. However, that we 
may not be too lugubrious let me add that I have read 
in the French equivalent of " Notes and Queries " a 
statement that she cheerfully lived to keep a stall in 
the market. 

One more bead in this string of scattered " facts," 
and the hungerers for documentary evidence must go 
away satisfied. The disorder of Bohemia requires no 
emphasis, but it is curious to note that the persons in 
whom its more orderly elements were incarnated were 
Champfleury himself and the original of that odd figure, 
Carolus Barbemuche, the solemn young tutor who in 
Murger's story glances so enviously at the cenacle of 
Rodolphe, Schaunard, and Marcel in the Cafe Momus, 
who saves them from disaster by paying for their reck- 
less Christmas Eve supper, who demands so humbly 
the privilege of being admitted to the clan, who serves 
so long and expensive an apprenticeship and gives such 
a splendid festival on his reception, even to the length 
of lending all his own presentable clothes to his guests 
for the occasion. Carolus Barbemuche was drawn, much 
to his disgust, from Charles Barbara, an obscure writer 
of fantastic stories, who joined Murger's Bohemia after 
acting as tutor to two boys. He had a face like a sphinx, 
rarely smiled, and seemed to be afraid of the wild jokes 
of his friends. Unlike the rest, he lived almost a hermit's 

248 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

life, receiving nobody in his garret, and retiring there 
every night neither to read nor to write, but to think, a 
queer occupation for a Bohemian. Of him Champfleury 
writes : 

" He and I represented order in a group doomed to 
disorder ; we were the bourgeois of Bohemia, as much 
by our ambitions as our manner of hving. The details 
of one day of our life, which continued in the same way 
for ten years, will show the succession of our studies and 
our labours. Rising very early, dashing from my bed 
to my table, I used to write till nine o'clock. An hour 
sufficed me for breakfast and a walk to the library, where 
I worked till twelve ; there I used to meet Barbara, 
whom I took to the public lectures at the College de 
France, the Sorbonne, or the Jardin des Plantes. Two 
lectures, an hour each, exhausted our attention, and, 
resuming our walk, we arrived at Schann's temple of 
music, exclusively consecrated to quartets. Two hours 
of music every day, without counting piano trios three 
times a week at another house, made us able to read 
all the chamber music of the German masters. . . . 
Barbara was the finest instrumentalist in our band ; 
son and brother of distinguished musicians, he had 
received in early youth excellent violin lessons, the fruit 
of which was not lost later, and he brought to the leading 
of a quartet a restrained emotion which is to be found in 
some pages of his writings." 

It is an unexpectedly pretty glimpse into a part of 
Bohemia where Murger was not at home. When the 
quartets took place in a little square of the Quartier 

249 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Latin, students and grisettes came to listen before the 
open window, and workpeople on every story put out 
their heads to watch for the arrival of the musicians. 
Murger's disreputable Schaunard, with his symphony on 
LHnfluence du bleu dans la musique, was always, I must 
confess, my favourite ; but to discover that he played 
the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, 
and Mendelssohn for two hours a day with Barbemuche 
and Marcel — well, it was an intoxicating vision. Schau- 
nard, who had a passion for lobsters, the composer (in 
his fleshly form of Schann) of a famous drinking song, 
as second violin in a Beethoven quartet — oh pleasant, 
pleasant fellow, who truly deserved to come into the 
comfortable harbour of a toy-shop ! 

Marcel, so far as he was Champfleury, found a haven 
too, and lived till 1889. Colline retired to found a new 
religion in Switzerland, and Rodolphe-Murger, though 
he lingered for some years in the band of artists and 
writers who haunted the brasserie where Courbet raised 
the temple of realism, finally turned his back on dissipa- 
tion and settled at Marlotte, even now a charming 
village near Fontainebleau. His chief recreation there 
was hunting, an occupation quite innocuous to the 
game, if it be true that a certain hare survived his 
attentions for a whole season, and when an unwary 
keeper shot it one misty afternoon, he exclaimed with 
genuine compunction, " Tiens, c'est le lievre de M. 
Murger ! " In 1861 he came to die in Paris of arteritis, 

250 



MURGER AND HIS FRIENDS 

and all the literary world visited his bedside. He died 
two days after his admission to the hospital, exclaiming, 
" Pas de musique ! Pas de bruit ! Pas de Boheme ! " 
Bohemia, indeed, had long been dead, and in his last 
moments he may have recognized that it was well. 
There was no longer room for it in a busier, a better- 
swept world. In its golden age Bohemia did no more 
than share the imperfections of all human institutions. 
It had virtues, a liberty, a pride, and an ideal of its own. 
Murger had seen the beauty become a slattern, pretty 
no doubt beneath her smuts, gay in the midst of her 
sorrows, but free by tolerance, not by protest, her pride 
almost in the dust and her ideals in the possession of 
others. In the words which Theodore Pelloquet spoke 
over his grave, Murger belonged to an evil generation : 

" II appartenait a une mauvaise generation, a une 
generation vieillie avant I'heure, et, malgre sa vieillesse 
prematuree, sans experience, sans enthousiasme et 
sans colere, ayant de la vanite et pas du tout d'orgueil, 
une vanite niaise, puerile, qui se manifeste surtout par 
I'affectation d'une ironie mesquine, en face de tous les 
enthousiasmes et de toutes les grandes causes ; a une 
generation, en un mot, qui laissa perir dans ses mains 
le magnifique heritage que lui avaient l^gue les hommes 
de 1830." 



251 



XI 
AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

The pageant of 1830 has passed, and our gaze has been 
directed to its Bohemian ingredients with the purpose 
of noting the particular marks and quahties which 
distinguished Bohemia, and how their particular 
manifestations were conditioned and varied by the 
progress of the years. Looking out of the window of 
the present, we have been unable at any moment to 
call a halt, lest we should lose a comprehensive view 
of the main development. Now that this view has 
been gained it will do no harm to send the procession 
once more before the mind's eye, that we may fix at 
leisure any less important details which may seem 
in themselves attractive. One of the most happy 
qualities of the Bohemian nature is its capacity for 
amusing itself. Real boredom and lackadaisical idle- 
ness do not come into the list of its shortcomings. The 
passionate Romantics, indeed, fashionably suffered from 
" spleen " and " ennui," they proclaimed a " coeur 
use comme I'escalier d'une fille de joie," but the 
Bohemian, so far as he indulged in these peculiarities, 
was amusing himself. To him " spleen " and " ennui " 
were part of the game which he embraced with en- 

252 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

thusiasm and in which he desired to excel ; yet they 
were parts to which, as a general rule, he did not pay 
too much attention, preferring the more positive and 
assertive sides of Romanticism. Neither Gautier nor 
Gerard de Nerval nor Rodolphe nor Schaunard presents 
himself to the imagination as suffering from bore- 
dom. An unfailing capacity for amusing oneself and 
finding amusement in one's fellow-men is an essential 
Bohemian trait The preceding chapters have not 
been wholly devoid of indications as to the way in 
which these talents were exercised by the Bohemian 
clans, but it was necessary to insist rather on the 
diversions which characterized the particular spirit of 
each brotherhood than on the general opportunities 
which they all enjoyed with slight variation. The 
field is now open without restriction, and it will not 
be amiss to take a glimpse here and there at the 
Bohemian enjoying his leisure, if only to add a few 
vivid touches that will enliven the background of the 
picture. The work of Bohemia can always be taken 
for granted ; artistic endeavour, whether actively or 
indolently pursued, varies but little in external feature ; 
the change, the colour, the tragedy and comedy are 
only to be found within the artist's mind ; but the 
amusement of Bohemia, so far from being hidden, 
courts publicity. It takes its colour, too, so largely 
from the changing world around that there is great 
pictorial value in its easily observable vicissitudes. 

253 



VIE DE BOHEME 



For that reason I devote this chapter to the subject 
of its title without further apology, but only with the 
caution that here the accidents rather than the essentials 
of Bohemia are regarded. The privilege of amusement 
is open to everybody, but to see what Bohemia made 
of its privileges in that respect is, perhaps, to quicken 
it for the imagination by an extra spark. 

Precisians might say that dress hardly comes under 
the head of amusements and that on certain views it 
is more properly included in the category of necessities 
or of nuisances. Yet there is no doubt that for all 
women — and for more men than would admit it — to 
be well dressed is an enjoyment, a term only differing 
from amusement by a smaller suggestion of possible 
frivolity. It is quite a sufficient warrant, at all events, 
for giving dress a small part in this chapter ; besides, 
the costume of any individual or society is both a sure 
indicator of qualities and an apt focus for judgment. 
In England, the very home of illustrated books and 
papers, it is not necessary to say much in evoking the 
costume of a past age, so that the subject may be 
treated quite shortly, especially as regards the men of 
Bohemia, whose dress was too often a deplorable 
tragedy. When Marcel went to Musette's party with 
" Mathusalem " buttoned up to the neck over a blue 
shirt dotted with the figures of a boar-hunt he was, as 
Murger says, " dressed in the worst taste possible." 
In such a case there is no more to be said ; his appear- 

254 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

ance would vary little from age to age. To the Bohemian 
in his lean days, certainly, it would be an insult to 
impute enjoyment of his tattered wardrobe. Those 
who most enjoyed dressing, without a doubt, were 
the Bohemian generation who cheered " Hernani " 
with such frenzy, for they made their pourpoints, felt 
sombreros, Robespierre waistcoats, and Phrygian caps 
effective details in the general Romantic demonstra- 
tion and, as such, matters of intense pleasure. But 
these extravagances have already caught our attention ; 
they were part of that frantic desire for novelty and 
colour which was a symptom of le mal romantique ; 
their proper complement was that rage for fancy-dress 
balls which broke out shortly after 1830 and laid every 
nationality and period under contribution for pic- 
turesque costumes. So far as the men are concerned, 
it need only be pointed out that the general dress of the 
time — against which Bohemia stood out at first and 
into which it gradually faded — was that of tight panta- 
loons with straps, long coats with full skirts and 
accentuated waists, full cravats, lavish jewellery, and 
high hats in a bewildering variety of shapes, cylindrical, 
conical, inverted conical, curly, straight, with broad 
brims and with scarce a brim at all — the civilian 
uniform, in fact, of our own late Georgian and early 
Victorian era. It was a dress that only a few could 
wear with distinction; on the rest it wrinkled and 
puffed in inevitable ugliness. A Roger de Beauvoir 

255 



VIE DE BOHEME 



could look immaculately moulded, but one has only 
to glance at the caricatures of Travies, Monnier, Daumier, 
and Gavarni to see how unequivocally hideous were 
the clothes of an average man. To be out at elbows 
in this exacting fashion was indeed to be a sorry sight, 
and one can well imagine poor Lucien de Rubempre to 
have been in his provincial attire fair game for the 
sneers of Rastignac and de Marsay. Still, even the 
Bohemian had a new suit at times, and it lights the 
memory of Arsene Houssaye, Camille Rogier, Murger, 
Champfieury, and the rest to recall that it was not 
for comfortable lounge suits and flannels that they 
got into debt, but for correct suits of "tails," flowery 
waistcoats, top-hats, and patent leather boots. It 
gives a quaint touch of decorum to the picture of their 
wildest excesses. 

Women entered Bohemia as guests rather than as 
inhabitants, and to the fair visitors conformity to 
fashion was anything but a trifle. To deck themselves 
fittingly was their constant amusement, and one in 
which they took good care that their swains should be 
sharers. The female dress of the time is well known 
to us from early pictures of Queen Victoria and the 
paintings of Winterhalter ; there are few, too, who 
at one time or another have not seen some of Gavarni's 
beautiful fashion plates. The Empire style had entirely 
disappeared, and the accent was in 1830 laid chiefly 
on the waist. The shoulders were sloping and wide, 

256 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

the sleeves so voluminous that by 1836 they were like 
miniature balloons, the skirt very wide and full, ending 
above the ankles. The waist and head were made to 
seem very small in proportion, so that two loaves 
placed one on top of the other would have made a very 
good caricature of a woman's figure at any time during 
the golden age of Bohemia. The hair was elaborately 
done to frame a pretty face daintily under a large 
poke-bonnet. It was pre-eminently the day of " fragile " 
women : nothing in their costume seemed made for 
hard wear. Cydalise or Victorine, as she swung in 
the hammock among the gallants of the Impasse du 
Doyenne, would have kicked a little cross -laced foot out 
from ethereal folds of flowered muslin, and gathered a 
gauzy scarf enticingly round bare shoulders. Fashions 
were indeed expensive for a fond lover's pocket, but 
at least he was never at a loss what to buy for his 
mistress, so many were the little accessories to the 
Graces' toilet. He was never wrong, for instance, in 
offering a piece of gay ribbon, for there were bows 
everywhere, on the bosom, on the sleeves, and, with 
long dazzling streamers, round the waist. There was 
no end to their variety and combination of colours, 
brilliant and pale ; even the crudest Scottish tartans 
were not considered amiss, as a certain dress in the 
London Museum will show the incredulous. If ribbon 
was too paltry, a man in a really generous mood would 
present a cashmere shawl, an expensive and much 

257 R 



VIE DE BOHEME 



appreciated luxury. The manipulation of shawls on 
frail, rounded little persons, who, in England at least, 
still fainted at will and indulged in the vapours, was 
a matter of some art. Balzac, in one of his short 
stories, asserts that a femme du monde could be dis- 
tinguished from the actress or the grisette by the 
handling of her cachemire alone. There was only one 
great change in woman's dress between the earlier and 
later days of Bohemia, and that was in the sleeves, 
which dwindled suddenly as if the balloons had been 
pricked, and became either closely fitting or almost 
disappeared into two little frilly bands. In fact, 
during the forties, before skirts began to be exaggerated 
on horse-hair paddings and verge upon the crinoline, 
female costume was as nearly natural as it can be 
if corsets be granted. Nothing can be more charming 
than the appearance of the Queen of the Belgians in 
her portrait by Winterhalter which hangs in the 
gallery at Versailles. She wears a red velvet dress, cut 
simply as to the corsage, with the skirt reaching the 
ground in full, stately folds : there is no extravagance 
of bows and frills, only a little lace at the bosom and 
sleeves. So, if we would picture Mimi or Musette, as 
they were dressed for that memorable day at Fontenay- 
aux-Roses, in the new muslin frocks made by their own 
hands, we must imagine dainty little women, looking 
as if a breath would blow them away, their pretty 
cheeks showing between two bewitching clusters of 

258 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

ringlets, straw bonnets with not too large brims upon 
their heads, tied with a coquettish ribbon, gowns of 
flowered muslin, light, simple, and flowing, and scarfs 
pinned round their sloping shoulders or held in place 
by mittened hands. Gavarin drew them to the life time 
and time again, and they were considerably more attrac- 
tive than any would-be BoMmiennes of our time in their 
rough, untidy tweeds or amorphous " rational " dress. 

From the amusement of clothing the body it is an 
easy transition to that of refreshing it. Eating and 
drinking, like dress, may from a certain point of view 
come under the head of necessities, but indulgence in 
good cheer when possible is a habit of young people 
of which a Bohemian was by no means contemptuous. 
A word, therefore, about his particular haunts among 
the thousand cafes and restaurants of Paris will not be 
out of season. After 1830 the great houses in the 
Palais Royal had fallen out of fashion, and the four 
leading restaurants of Paris were on the boulevard. 
Bohemians, it is true, were not often to be found within 
them, but in the golden age, when Bohemia was nearer 
to the dandies and viveurs, it would at least have been 
possible that in a moment of extravagance some 
Bohemian friend should have accompanied Roger de 
Beauvoir into the Cafe de Paris, the Cafe Riche, the 
Cafe Hardy, or the Cafe Anglais. The Caf6 de Paris 
was opposite Tortoni's, which stood at the end of 
the Rue Taitbout. Besides being the home of the 

259 



VIE DE BO HEME 



aristocratic petit cercle, it was renowned for its witty 
conversation and its general air of luxury. Since it 
was favoured by the aspirants to smartness, as well as 
the perfect examples, its society was less select than 
that of the Cafe Riche, at the corner of the Rue Lepeletier, 
or the Cafe Anglais, which still remains in its old 
position. There was a quiet solidity about the Cafe 
Anglais, in particular, which gave it a peculiar air of 
distinction, though its company was gay enough at 
gupper-time. It was especially famous for its roast 
meat and its grills, though in these matters the Cafe 
Hardy, at the corner of the Rue Laffitte, ran it close. 
Hardy was an English cook who invented the dejeuner 
d la fourchette, and popularized it by setting up the 
first silver grill in Paris. Customers chose their own 
cutlet or steak and saw it cooked before their eyes. 
At all these four the prices were very high, and with 
regard to two of them it was said : "On doit etre riche 
pour diner au Cafe Hardy, et hardi pour diner au Caf6 
Riche." However, the chief haunt for Bohemians with 
money to spend was the Rocher de Cancale, where it 
was easier to be uproarious without offending the 
proprieties. This famous restaurant still stands in the 
dirty, provincial Rue Montorgueil, in the midst of 
small shops whose wares overflow on to the pavement. 
The stately ornamentation of dark painted wood is 
still visible on its upper stories, but the specimens of 
edibles in its ground-floor windows tell too plainly 

260 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 



to what depths it has sunk. It is no longer a possible 
home for Rastignac and his boon companions, nor 
would it tempt Ars^ne Houssaye to entertain there 
the brethren of la Boheme galante, for it merely plies 
the trade of the convenient marchand de vin in a rather 
squalid quarter. The Rocher de Cancale had declined 
already during the later days of Bohemia, and in 
Murger's day they repaired on jours de Hesse to the 
Cafe de I'Odeon, Hill's Tavern in the Boulevard des 
Capucines, or the Cabaret Dinochan at the corner of 
the Rue de Navarin. The first of these was, in parti- 
cular, the haunt of Baudelaire and his friends, where 
the unfortunate H^gesippe Moreau made his brief 
acquaintance with the main stream of Bohemia towards 
the end of his days, which had been mainly passed in 
a backwater. Hill's Tavern was one of the many 
chop-houses in the English style that flourished in 
Louis Philippe's Paris — only the Petit Lucas, a 
charming place for a quiet dinner, remains to-day — 
to cater for the down-at-elbows Englishmen, jockeys, 
and trainers, of whom there was always a certain 
number. At supper-time, however, it was invaded 
by Bohemia, and was often so full that its doors had 
to be closed. One of its peculiarities was that its 
private rooms were named after Shakespeare, Byron, 
and other great poets. The Cafe Dinochan, according 
to Delvau,* was the ground on which a great many 
* " Histoire anecdotique des Cafes at Cabarets de Paris." 
261 



VIE DE BOHEME 



small papers of the day were started. Monselet, 
Nadar, Fauchery, and Champfleury were among its 
customers, and Mm^ger died in debt to its proprietor 
for twelve hundred francs, for it was said of this worthy 
creditor : " On dine tres-bien chez lui quand on a 
quarante sous dans une poche — et dix francs dans 
I'autre." Yet the full apparatus of a restaurant was 
not necessary to the gaiety of Bohemian suppers, for 
in scanty days they made just as merry in the shops 
of one or two bakeries on rolls and warm milk. The 
Boulangerie Cretaine in the Quartier Latin was famous 
for its milk rolls and for the brilliant conversation of 
Privat d'Anglemont, who, though it was against his 
principle to get into debt, ran up a bill there for half- 
penny rolls of six hundred francs. The other famous 
baker was the patissier Pitou, by the Porte Montmartre, 
where a crowd of Bohemians used to congregate after 
the midnight closing of the cafSs. In the back shop was 
a table running round three sides of the square, and 
at this " piano," as it was called, the quaint figure of 
Guichardet presided. Guichardet, whose " nez ver- 
meil et digne " was celebrated in one of Banville's 
triolets, was a Bohemian of the type of Balzac's Comte 
de la Palferine, one who had voluntarily dropped out 
of the race of life while preserving all his dignity and 
pride. He passed his days in amiable vagabondage, 
but preserved " a perfume of exquisite politeness and 
witty impertinence which made him the most delight- 

262 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

ful companion in the world." So says Delvau, according 
to whom he was the only man left in France who 
really knew how to say " Femme charmante ! " 

So far I have mainly mentioned the haunts of 
Bohemians with the means and inclination for a certain 
amount of self-indulgence. But in Bohemia occasions 
preponderated when indulgence in anything beyond 
bare necessities was an impossibility. The left bank 
swarmed with cheap refuges for those who had hearty 
appetites and only a few pence. There was Viot's 
for the poorest of the poor ; Dagneaux's or Magny's in 
the Rue Contrescarpe-Dauphine — rather superior houses 
where it was possible to procure a semblance of good 
cheer; and the Cabaret of Mere Cadet outside the 
Barri^re Montparnasse, where Schaunard had his first 
meeting with Colline over the stewed rabbit with 
two heads. This last had a garden which ran along 
the Montparnasse cemetery, and under the shade of 
its dusty shrubs not only literary Bohemians but 
nearly all the young actors and actresses of the Theatre 
Montparnasse and the Theatre du Luxembourg made 
their scanty meals. You might as well have asked 
for sphinx there as chicken, says Delvau, the staple 
dishes being stewed rabbit and choucroute garnie. To 
give a longer catalogue of such places would be neither 
instructive nor amusing, and their types are easily 
enough found in the Paris of to-day. There are two, 
however, that call for special mention, for fiction has 

263 



VIE DE BOHEME 



carried their fame beyond the days of their material 
existence. No reader of Balzac's " Illusions Perdues " 
can have forgotten the description of the cheap eating- 
house at the corner of the Place de la Sorbonne and 
the Rue Neuve de Richelieu, with the small panes of 
glass of its front window, its comforting announcement 
of pain d discretion, its long tables like those of a 
monastic refectory, its varieties of cow's flesh and 
veal, and the hurried air of its diners, who came there 
to eat and not to loiter. This famous house, where a 
dinner of three dishes with a carafon of wine or a bottle 
of beer cost ninepence, where Lucien de Rubempre 
met Lousteau and made the acquaintance of d'Arthez 
and his virtuous friends, was the restaurant of Fli- 
coteaux, no product of Balzac's imagination, but a name 
known to all the strugglers for fame and fortune. It 
was a sure ground on which to observe Bohemia, not 
indeed in its greatest indigence, but on the days when 
there was at least no margin. Thackeray mentions it 
in his " Paris Sketch- Book," and there is a passage in 
Lytton Bulwer's " France " which vividly gives the 
impression produced by Flicoteaux on an English eye : 

" Enter [he says] between three and four o'clock, and 
take your seat at one of the small tables, the greater 
number of which are already occupied. To your 
right there is a pale young man : his long hair, falling 
loosely over his face, gives an additional wildness to 
the eye, which has caught a mysterious light from the 

264 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

midnight vigil ; his clothes are clean and threadbare ; 
his coat too short at the wrists ; his trousers too short 
at the legs ; his cravat of a rusty black, and vaguely 
confining two immense shirt collars, leaves his thin 
and angular neck almost entirely exposed. To your 
left is a native of the South, pale and swarthy : his 
long black locks, parted from his forehead, descend 
upon his shoulders ; his lip is fringed with a slight 
moustache, and the semblance of a beard gives to his 
meditative countenance an antique and apostolic cast. 
Ranged round the room, with their thin, meagre 
portions of meat and bread, their pale decanter of 
water before them, sit the students, whom a youth 
of poverty and privation is preparing for a life of energy 
or science." 

Flicoteaux has long been swept away, and buildings 
of the Sorbonne now occupy its site. Gone, too, these 
many years, is the Cafe Momus, which stood in a back 
street by the old church of Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois, 
the hostelry celebrated by so many exploits of Murger's 
four heroes in " Scenes de la Vie de Boh^me." It was 
here that Schaunard and Colline collected Rodolphe 
for the Bohemian brotherhood, and it became their 
home, not so much for meals, though it was the scene 
of their reckless Christmas Eve supper which intro- 
duced the saviour Barbemuche, but rather for the 
lighter consommations over which, by the French 
custom, they could spend unlimited hours — a precious 
privilege when a cold garret was the only alternative. 

265 



VIE DE BOHEME 



There was nothing fictitious about the Cafe Momus ; 
it was a real estabhshment serving some respectable 
shopkeepers of the quarter, when by some mischance, 
from the good M. Momus' point of view, it attracted 
the Bohemian horde of Murger, Champfleury, Nadar, 
Schann, Wallon, and many of the other " Buveurs 
d'Eau." Even on Murger's testimony, they must be 
admitted to have abused their privileges without 
shedding any very great glory in return, and we may 
take as fairly true the list of grievances which was 
drawn up by the proprietor against Rodolphe and his 
friends, from which it appears that they spent the 
whole day there from morning to midnight, making a 
desert round them with their strident voices and 
extravagant conversation ; that Rodolphe carried off 
all the papers in the morning and complained if their 
bands were broken, and that by shouting every quarter 
of an hour for Le Castor, a journal of the hat trade 
edited by Rodolphe, the companions had forced a 
subscription on the proprietor ; that Colline and 
Rodolphe played tric-trac all day, refusing to give 
up the table to other people ; that Marcel set up his 
easel in the cafS, and even went so far as to invite 
models of both sexes ; that Schaunard had expressed 
his intention of bringing his piano there, and that 
Phemie Teinturiere never wore a bonnet when she 
came to meet him ; that, not content with ordering 
very little, the four friends presumed to make their 

266 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

own coffee on the premises ; and that the waiter, 
corrupted by their influence, had seen fit to address 
an amatory poem to the dame du co^nptoir. Murger 
puts a touch of exaggeration into this complaint, but 
it is to be feared, nevertheless, that no trifling dossier 
of misdemeanours could have been compiled against 
the originals of Rodolphe, Marcel, and the rest. We 
have it on Delvau's authority, at all events, that the 
profit of their custom was quite disproportionate to its 
assiduity, when he tells of their stratagem for obtaining 
asylum at small cost. The smallest possible order was 
a demi-tasse, which consisted of a small cup of coffee, 
four lumps of sugar, and a thimbleful of cognac; this 
cost five sous, a sum of importance in Bohemia. The 
practice, therefore, was that a certain student, Joannis 
Guigard, who was of the band, went in first, ordered a 
demi-tasse, and went upstairs to consume it. Murger 
would then arrive, ask if Guigard were upstairs, and 
run up. The rest followed in succession with the same 
question till the cenacle was complete and in a position 
to have a sip of coffee and some hours of warmth for 
nothing. After a short while Momus grew tired of 
these troublesome customers and formally gave them 
notice to quit. They accepted the intimation, but 
vowed revenge. Accordingly, a few days later, one of 
the band turned up with six wet-nurses in his train, 
while another brought six funeral mutes. The rest of 
the band then arrived, and the Bohemian spokesman, 

267 



VIE DE BOHEME 



probably Schann, delivered a flowery discourse upon 
the affinity of life and death, with allusions to their 
guests' professions. He wound up by telling the mutes 
to bury the Cafe Momus and take the nurses as a reward. 
To make matters worse, he directed that the milk and 
beer which had been ordered should be warmed as a 
mixture. The mutes and nurses, furious at being thus 
deceived and insulted, broke into angry expostulations, 
and, aided by the jests of the Bohemians, the pro- 
ceedings ended in a tremendous disturbance. Schann 
and two others were arrested, and the next day Momus 
sold his business. 

The extent to which Bohemia, at its different phases, 
shared in the various pastimes of Paris cannot be 
determined with any accuracy, so much depended on 
individual taste and individual wealth. It is certain, 
however, that after 1837 gambling was not a Bohemian 
distraction, for in that year the public gaming-houses 
were closed. Before that time they were such a popular 
institution that the early Bohemia cannot be conceived 
to have entirely eschewed it. At the beginning of 
" La Peau de Chagrin " Balzac draws a powerful picture 
of the wretched crowd that haunted the Palais Royal, 
where Raphael de Valentin lost his last gold coin at 
a single coup. There were no less than four gaming- 
houses in the Palais Royal, Nos. 9, 113, 124, and 
129, where the minimum stake was two francs for 
roulette and five francs for trente-et-un. Besides the 

268 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

Palais Royal, there were Paphos, Frascati, and the 
select Cercle des !fitrangers. The popularity of gambling 
can be judged from the fact that the Treasury profited 
annually by it to the extent of five and a half million 
francs. Yet there is no record that the truly artistic 
members of Bohemia, like Gautier or Houssaye, so 
wasted time or money, while Murger and his friends 
were spared the temptation. In music, too, Bohemia 
played no very great part, in spite of the devotion of 
Champfleury, Barbara, and Schann to Beethoven's 
quartets. There was plenty of fine music to be heard 
in Paris during the time : Habeneck was introducing 
Beethoven's symphonies, Berlioz was revolutionizing 
orchestration, while Liszt, Chopin, Paganini, Vieux- 
temps, and de Beriot were among the soloists. Cer- 
tainly those Bohemians of the golden age who had 
access to the salons of the Princess Belgiojoso or Madame 
de Girardin must often have heard these great artists, 
but it is not to be supposed that they were great 
supporters of concerts, unless it were of the Concerts 
Musard. These concerts, which won great fame through 
the personality of Musard, the conductor, began in 
1833 in the Salle Saint-Honore ; * their programmes 
were excellent and the prices low enough to attract 
the least well off. Musard had a genius for making 
pot-pourris of operatic tunes and for introducing new 
effects, especially into dance music. His electric style 
* In the summer they took place in the Champs Elys^es. 
269 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of conducting made the Bals Musard far more popular 
than the great balls at the Opera. He contrived a wonder- 
ful quadrille, for instance, out of "Les Huguenots," 
during which red lights were lit, tocsins pealed, tom- 
toms boomed, screams resounded, and the whole 
illusion of a massacre was thrillingly kept up. He also 
composed a contre-danse in the finale of which he broke 
a chair, and his triumph was a certain galop in which 
he discharged a pistol. This was thoroughly in keeping 
with the Romantic spirit, and after its first perform- 
ance he was publicly chaired round the hall by the 
excited dancers. So far as pure music was concerned, 
however, it appealed most to Parisians in the form 
of opera. Meyerbeer's " Robert le Diable " and " Les 
Huguenots " produced frenzies of enthusiasm : no 
Romantic, consequently no Bohemian of Gautier's day, 
could afford not to have listened to them. Rossini's 
great vogue began at the same time, while Donizetti 
and Auber shared the honours of light opera till Offen- 
bach appeared to carry all before him. Musical 
Bohemia was well educated, if not in composition, 
at least in execution, when it was possible to hear 
Duprez, Rubini, Lablache, Tamburini, Grisi, Mario, 
Persiani, and Pauline Viardot-Garcia. The ballet, too, 
with Carlotta Grisi, Taglioni, and Fanny Elssler, was an 
additional attraction at the Opera. The devotion of 
la Boheme galante to the corys de ballet has appeared in 
an earlier chapter, and it was a devotion shared by 

270 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

most masculine society. Murger's Bohemia flourished 
after the greatest operatic enthusiasms, which its 
more classically inclined members probably despised ; 
but their exchequers were not of the sort to allow for 
tickets at the grand opera, though they turned up in 
force at the light operas of the Theatre Bobino. At 
this little theatre, more properly called the Theatre 
du Luxembourg, there was a continuous uproar made 
by Bohemians and students. When this grew too 
unbearable the manager would appear in his dressing- 
gown and protest that the police would arrive if the 
respectable inhabitants of the quarter were disturbed ; 
whereupon the whole audience struck up as one man 
Gretry's air " Ou peut-on etre mieux qu'au sein de la 
famille ? " accompanied by the wheezy orchestra and 
conducted by the manager himself. At such a scene 
Schaunard and Marcel must often have assisted. 

Nevertheless, in the eyes of Bohemia, the glory of 
the opera paled entirely before that of the drama. 
There was not one Bohemian with any literary talent 
who did not try to write a play — nay, many plays — 
tragedies in alexandrines, comedies, or vaudevilles ; 
and when they were not writing plays they were 
haunting the theatres as dramatic critics, selling their 
articles simply for the sake of a free entry, unless, 
like Lucien's immoral set, they added the profits of 
blackmail. From the second cenacle to the end of Mur- 
ger's Bohemia there was no end so generally pursued 

271 



VIE DE BOHEME 



as dramatic composition. Bouchardy and Augustus 
Mackeat were dramatists, so were Ourliac, Ars^ne 
Houssaye, and Gerard de Nerval; Gautier was a 
dramatic critic ; Murger and Champfleury failed as 
vaudevillists ; and it is quite likely that Rodolphe's 
magnificent drama, "Le Vengeur,"hadits counterpart in 
reality. The " po^te echevele " and the humble conteur 
alike turned their eyes continuously towards the stage, 
besieging luckless managers without cease. The reason 
of this was partly, as may be supposed, that a success- 
ful play, then as to-day, gave far quicker and more 
splendid pecuniary returns for labour than any other 
form of literary composition. A concrete instance of 
that is the case of Murger himself, who was set on his 
legs entirely by the sudden vogue of the dramatized 
" Scenes de la Vie de Boheme." But there was another 
reason at least as strong, far deeper, and more honour- 
able. The stage, as I have already pointed out, was 
the battlefield of the Romantic struggle. " Hernani " 
brought home the new truths to the public far more 
vividly than any novel or poem could have done ; 
every night they were declaimed before compelled 
attention. It is not surprising, then, that the stage 
played so great a part in the amusements of Bohemia. 
It was, with one other, the chief of their pastimes. 
For them to listen to «'Chatterton," the "Tour de 
Nesle," or "Antony" was not only a distraction, it was 
a frantic excitement which made their blood seethe 

272 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

almost painfully and sent geysers of hot eloquence 
from their lips as they munched the hot rolls of 
the Boulangerie Cretaine. These young enthusiasts 
were not stinted of good fare. Mademoiselle Mars, 
Marie Dorval, Rachel and Judith appeared at the 
Frangais during these eighteen years ; at the Folies- 
Dramatique Frederic Lemaitre created with enormous 
success the part of Robert Macaire ; while at the 
Funambules Gaspard Deburau was winning eternal 
fame as the incomparable Pierrot. There were a host 
of other theatres besides, the Varietes, Porte Saint- 
Martin, Odeon, not to mention smaller ones, managed 
for the most part by men of taste, supplied with plays 
by men with some pretension to talent, and criticized 
by unsparing critics, from Jules Janin downwards, 
who knew what they wanted and did not hesitate to 
speak when they did not get it. In the stage Bohemia 
found not only amusement and inspiration but part 
of its livelihood : it lived next door to that special 
world composed of actors and actresses. Yet, though 
Bohemians went to supper with Mademoiselle Mars, 
Dumas was very much at home with Marie Dorval, 
Roger de Beauvoir played pranks with Bache, and 
Rodolphe had a love affair with Mademoiselle Sidonie, 
the two worlds were definitely separated. In fact, the 
life of dramatic artists, whatsoever Bohemian flavouring 
it may have, has always had a mysterious taste of its 
own, incapable of mixture with any other blend of 

273 S 



VIE DE BOHEME 



artistic life, so that, interesting as it may have been in 
Paris during these years, its omission from these pages 
has been intentional. 

The one other amusement — a pure pastime involving 
no material profit — which was particularly popular in 
Bohemia was dancing. In this respect Bohemia was 
no exception from the rest of Parisian society, for in 
all classes there was an inextinguishable passion for 
the dance. But the Bohemian, obeying only his own 
laws of social propriety, was in a more favourable 
position for taking full advantage of all public oppor- 
tunities for this exercise and of all the agrements in the 
way of casual intercourse with both sexes which it 
implied. All the year round there were public balls 
given in Paris, at which the Bohemian was in his 
element, giving rein to his inventive humour, his high 
spirits, and his gift of seductive gallantry. During the 
first few years after 1830, the golden age of Bohemia, 
the balls at the Opera were the most frequented, 
especially in the days of the carnival. There masks 
and dominoes covered dancers of every rank in society, 
for even the femme du monde slipped in unbeknown to 
her husband. This scene of utmost gaiety and brilliance, 
of which Balzac gives a picture at the opening of 
" Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes," was closely 
rivalled by the ball at the Varietes, at which a still 
more feverish excitement reigned. Or if the Bohemian 
preferred to make sure of a grisette as a partner he 

274 




p 






AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 



went to the Prado, the site of which was opposite the 
Palais de Justice, where, under Pilodo, the famous 
conductor, he could join Louise la Balocheuse, Angelina 
I'Anglaise, or Ernestine Confortable in the giddy 
whirl. The waltz was recognized at this period, but 
the quadrille easily held the place of honour, especially 
as it lent itself more freely to individual invention, 
such as Ourliac's magnificent variation depicting the 
grandeur and fall of Napoleon. It was through this 
licence in the figures of the quadrille that the chahut 
and the cancan were introduced by the rakish set 
among the viveurs which included Charles de la Battut, 
Alton-Shee, Monnier, and the famous Chicard— a 
leather-merchant who made a name by his grotesque 
costumes and wild dances, the term chicard, which 
degenerated into chic, becoming a general denomina- 
tion for his imitators. I have not been able to arrive 
at the difference between the chahut and the cancan, 
but both were originally primitive dances indulged in 
by the lowest classes, quaint, but in all probability 
perfectly decent. The rage for extravagance during 
the early thirties changed them into formidable panto- 
mimes of violence, if not always of indecency, which 
every complete reveller rendered with his own in- 
dividual touch. Heine, in the course of one of his 
articles in the Augsburg Gazette, said of the cancan : 

" It must be regarded simply as a pantomime of 
Robert Macairedom. Anybody who has a general idea 

275 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of the latter will understand those indescribable dances, 
expressions of persiflage in dance, which not only mock 
sexual relations, but civic relations too, all, in fact, 
that is good and beautiful, every kind of enthusiasm, 
patriotism, uprightness, faith, family feeling, heroism, 
divinity." 

Heine's view is rather too Teutonic, for the popu- 
larity of the cancan was due to the high spirits of the 
Romantic enthusiasm, and its degree of morality or 
immorality depended upon the individual dancer. 
Not much harm can be imagined to have dwelt in the 
dance-persiflage of the Impasse du Doyenne, whatever 
a Chicard or a Milord Arsouille may have made of it. 
The feature of public balls, however, was certainly a 
Dionysiac exaltation which culminated in the final 
galop infernal, as it was called, into which Musard 
particularly infused a special fury. It was less a 
dance than a stampede of maniacs, who rushed round 
the room, men and women, clutching one another 
anyhow, wigs flying, tresses waving, dresses rent from 
fair shoulders, all shrieking and shouting, brandishing 
arms, kicking legs, and stamping heedlessly on those 
who were unlucky enough to fall. 

The balls of the Opera declined in attraction and 
became dull about 1836, but they were revived with 
still greater splendour two years later, when Musard 
was made conductor and members of the ballet were 
drafted in to enliven the company. Such balls, how- 

276 




The Galop Infernal 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

ever, became too much public functions to suit the 
less splendid Bohemia of a later day, which found 
diversion more suited to its pocket and its manners 
at the Chaumi^re or the Closerie des Lilas on the left 
bank. It was at such places as these that Rodolphe 
and Marcel disported themselves, and Schaunard was 
arrested for " choregraphie trop macabre." The Chau- 
miere was a large garden on the Boulevard Mont- 
parnasse, a miniature edition of Cremorne or Vauxhall, 
with a primitive shooting gallery, a skittle alley, and 
switchback. It was open all day for students to 
promenade after lectures and make their addresses 
to the grisettes working under the trees. Its dances 
were very simple affairs ; a few lamps and Chinese 
lanterns, a small orchestra, a bar for lemonade and 
galette were all that the management supplied, the fun, 
of which they had enough and to spare, being the 
dancers' contribution. 

The Closerie des Lilas, though less generally popular 
than the Chaumiere, was more particularly associated 
with Bohemia than the latter, for Murger, Vitu, 
Fauchery, Theodore de Banville, and one or two 
others of that set frequented it regularly, as a French 
writer * says, " avec quelques comparses sans import- 
ance," among whom, no doubt, were Mimi and Musette. 
This little dancing-hall began in 1838 as La Chartreuse, 

* M. Henri d' Aimer as in "La Vie Parisienne sous Louis Philippe," 
from whose book other details of these balls are taken. 

277 



VIE DE BOHEME 



being so called because it was on the site of the old 
Carthusian monastery in the Rue d'Enfer. It was 
in some sort the trial-ground for those of the fair sex 
who aspired to become stars of the Prado and the 
Chaumi^re. Privat d'Anglemont has described it in a 
rare pamphlet as it was in its early days under its 
extraordinary manager, Carnaud. As La Chartreuse 
it was the most primitive kind of guingette, the dancing- 
place being a large marquee, into which one descended 
by a steep flight of steps. On the left were an orchestra 
and cafS, and the only ornaments were nine plaster 
statues representing the Muses, which were handily 
adapted for supporting petroleum lamps on their arms. 
" There," says Privat d'Anglemont, " decent dress 
was not de rigueur ; one came as one liked, or rather 
as one could — ^the women in bonnets or, in default of 
other adornments, covered simply by their hair, and 
the men in blouses. It certainly was the most original 
bar in Paris. It had a physiognomy of its own, strange, 
quaint, even a little burlesque, but it existed. Its 
population was to be seen nowhere else ; it seemed 
to exist only at the Chartreuse and for the Chartreuse. 
Since this ball disappeared its population has com- 
pletely vanished." 

Everything about the Chartreuse was original, not 
only the dancers and the dances but the orchestra, 
the music, and the manager. Every kind of " per- 
cussion " was added to the usual instruments, the 

278 




'B 

o 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

noise of money-bags, pistol shots, rows of explosive 
caps, resounding anvils, and sheets of metal struck 
to represent the roaring of lions and tigers. All the 
music was composed by Carnaud himself, who was 
conductor, first violin, restaurateur, composer, and 
advertisement- writer in one. At every special fete 
he invented a new quadrille and a new exotic word 
to describe it, such as " la fete des vendanges, quadrille 
dechirancochicandard," or "I'hotel des haricots,* avec 
accompaniments de chaines et de bruits de clefs, grand 
quadrille exhilarandeliranchocnosophe." 

Carnaud was succeeded by the famous Bullier, who 
altered the name to the Closerie des Lilas and replaced 
the simple marquee by an Oriental palace with a garden, 
Moorish pavilions, billiard tables, swings, and a pistol- 
shooting gallery. A decent orchestra was installed 
and four admirable waiters. With these improvements 
the balls, held every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, 
began to attract the heau monde of the Quartier Latin, 
and several of the dancers gained the coveted honour 
of a sobriquet. There were Jeanne la Juive, for instance, 
Maria les Yeux Bleus, Josephine Pochardinette, and 
the literary Clementine Pomponnette, who used to 
show her admirers a farce she had written " dans les 
loisirs que lui laissait I'amour." This transformation 
took place about 1847, and it was then that one of 

* The popular term for the prison in which refractory members of 
the Garde Nationale were confined. 

279 



VIE DE BOHEME 



the Moorish pavihons was especially consecrated to 
Murger's Bohemian set. It is needless to say that 
the name of Bullier still remains in the Bal Bullier of 
to-day. 

One other popular ball must be mentioned, the Bal 
Mabille, which for so long was one of the sights of Paris. 
This public ball was instituted by Mabille, a dancing- 
master, in the Champs Ely sees. The price of entrance 
at first was fifty centimes, with an extra fee for each 
quadrille, and in 1843 the whole of the dances were 
included in an initial sum of two francs. The fame 
of the Bal Mabille was due first to its polkas, a dance 
which became the rage at the time, and secondly to 
the most celebrated of polka-dancers, Elise Sergent, 
known as La Reine Pomare. Her dancing was a 
revelation of fire and passion which won her recognition 
on the very first evening of her appearance. Crowds 
came to see her dance, articles were devoted to her by 
the journalists of the day, and Privat d'Anglemont 
wrote a sonnet to her. Paris, in fact, went mad about 
her, and she had many lovers, among whom, it is 
said, was Alphonse Karr, which brings her into some 
kind of connexion with Bohemia. But Reine Pomar6 
and her rival. Celeste Mogador, who also made her 
dibut at Mabille, were too much on the plane of grandes 
cocottes for any real relation with the Bohemia of their 
day. They might have danced for love at the Impasse 
du Doyenne, but Schaunard and Marcel had nothing 

280 



AMUSEMENTS OF BOHEMIA 

to offer them to compare with the splendour of the 
viveurs which was laid at their feet. Bohemia found 
its pleasure at less expense and with less restraint in 
the company of Mimi and Musette in a Moorish pavilion 
at the Closerie des Lilas, where Colline's bad puns 
found appreciative listeners and Schaunard's pas de 
fascination were greeted with rapturous applause. 



281 



XII 

THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

Paris sombre etfumeux, 
Ou dejd, points brillants au front de maison ternes, 
Luisent comme des yeux des milliers de lanternes ; 
Paris avec ses toits dechiquetes, ses tours 
Qui ressemblent de loin a des cous de vautours, 
Et ses clochers aigus dfleche dentelee, 
Comme un peigne mordant la nue echevelee. 

Theophile Gautier 

The last chapter was devoted to certain accidental 
adjuncts of la vie de Boheme by way of general illus- 
tration, though they consisted of simple amusements 
common not only to the Parisians of the day but to 
civilized society of most epochs. The present chapter, 
which I have reserved till the last, might logically have 
claimed an earlier place, for its subject, as I have 
already pointed out, is distinctive of the society in 
which Bohemia played an important part. Bohemia, 
of course, neither monopolized Paris nor even a portion 
of it, but the Paris of Bohemia's florescence and 
decline was a unique background for these events, a 
necessary condition, though temporary in itself, which 

282 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

it would pass the bounds of human possibility to 
reconstruct. Interesting as it is to imagine correctly 
the dress of the Bohemian and his mistress, the places 
where they dined, or the gardens where they danced, 
the re-presentation of the city where they lived, so 
small, so sensitively vibrant, so congested, so hope- 
lessly out of date, except for a few new patches, so 
dirty, so noisy, and so picturesque, ranks far higher in 
importance. Yet, though I might have put this chapter 
first, I choose to put it last because I cannot hope 
that it will be appreciated by any but those who have 
already some memory of Paris and on whom the spell 
of its fascination has, at least, been lightly cast. The 
general description of Bohemian life may provide 
some entertainment to those who know not Paris ; 
for their sake I have sought not to break the general 
interest. My story is now told, and I am free to call 
those who have breathed, even for a moment, the 
quick breeze off the Seine or seen the sunshine strike 
through the trees in the Tuileries Gardens, to stay with 
me for a last look back upon that city of beauty and 
adventure which calls, like the East, to those who 
love it. To have gained even a superficial view of 
modern Paris, to have caught some of her accents and 
contrasts — the radiance of the Bois de Boulogne, the 
vivacity of the boulevards, the cafes overflowing on 
to the pavements, the view from her bridges, the 
differences between the two banks, the mean alleys 

283 



VIE DE BOHEME 



lurking mischievously at the back of splendid thorough- 
fares, the broadest omnibuses comically invading the 
narrowest streets — is to have formed some general 
notion with which an earlier Paris can be compared. 
And with a reader who has penetrated deeper, whose 
nostrils yearn for her indescribably subtle perfume, 
who knows the different aspects of her streets from 
days of diligent tramping, who has seen her river 
blending with her sky in a hundred harmonies, who 
has felt her moods and her humours, finding like a 
true lover her blemishes as adorable as her perfections, 
who has recognized her past in her present, and who, 
though a stranger, has divined in ecstasy the wild 
throb of her romantic heart — with him my task is 
easier still. Such a one will already have guessed the 
intoxication of the air which a Roger de Beauvoir 
delicately breathed, when Paris, her spirit newly 
quickened with the exhilaration of a potent elixir, was 
yet unspoiled by modern cosmopolitan vulgarity, and 
her inner soul shone out, through all her deformities 
and incongruities, with a gay and unmasked confidence. 
She did not shine before an unseeing generation, for 
the Parisians of the Romantic age adored their city, 
dandies, Bohemians, and bourgeois alike, all passionately 
conscious of their privileged citizenship, though they 
could admit with Maxime du Camp that under Louis 
Philippe she was " one of the dirtiest, the most tortuous, 
and the most unhealthy " in the world. As they lived 

284 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

in her, so they wrote of her — with pride. Victor Hugo 
did her great homage in " Notre Dame de Paris " and 
" Les Miserables," Eugene Sue in " Les Mysteres de 
Paris," and Paul de Kock in all his work, but these 
achievements ajDpear as slight and partial sketches 
beside the wonderful and penetrating picture which 
Balzac drew of Paris — at once the background and 
the protagonist — in his greatest novels. Balzac, besides 
giving us a world, gave us a great city. Minute as were 
the studies he made of the provinces, they are nothing 
to the picture that he drew of the city which he regarded 
as the brain of the whole world, the leader of its civiliza- 
tion. He gloated over Paris as a scientist gloats over 
an interesting organism that he has first observed and 
then skilfully dissected. He had dissected Paris even 
on the threshold of his career. In some of his early 
stories, like a brilliant young surgeon fresh from his 
researches, he overweights the matter in hand with 
the results of the laboratory. " Ferragus " begins with 
a long comparison of the streets of Paris ; "La Fille 
aux Yeux d'Or " with a marvellous tirade on the 
restless race for money and pleasure that is run by all 
classes, a tirade which, probing as it does all the strata 
of society, is an epitome, in some sort, of all his work. 
Paris, that small enceinte which was enclosed within 
what is now the second line of boulevards, still innocent 
of the reforming hand of Haussmann, becoming rich, 
but hardly yet industrial, not yet the pleasure-ground 

285 



VIE DE BOHEME 



of all the world, destitute of railways, squalid, ill-kept, 
nevertheless was transformed by his wonderful imagina- 
tion into the type of all great cities, which will ever 
remain true. To him she was " le plus delicieux des 
monstres," as he says in " Ferragus." "Mais, 6 Paris," 
he cries, " qui n'a pas admire tes sombres paysages, 
tes echappees de lumiere, tes euls-de-sac profonds et 
silencieux ; qui n'a pas entendu tes murmures, entre 
minuit et deux heures du matin, ne connait encore rien 
de ta vraie poesie, ni de tes bizarres et larges con- 
trastes. II est un petit nombre de gens . . . qui 
degustent leur Paris. . . . Pour ceux-la Paris est triste 
ou gai, laid ou beau, vivant ou mort ; pour eux Paris 
est une creature ; chaque homme, chaque fraction de 
maison est un lobe du tissu cellulaire de cette grande 
courtisane de laquelle ils connaissent parfaitement la 
tete, le coeur et les moeurs fantasques. Aussi ceux-la 
sont les amants de Paris. ..." 

There are a happy few to whom it would be enough 
to say that the Paris of Bohemia was the Paris of 
Balzac — such devotees, I mean, as have thought it 
worth while to pay attention to that accurate topo- 
graphy in which Balzac took so great a pride, following 
it in a contemporary map so that, in their walks about 
the modern city, streets and houses incessantly recall 
his characters and his scenes. But life is short for 
such agreeable exercises, so this chapter must in- 
adequately proceed. I have already touched on the 

286 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

social implications of Louis Philippe's Paris, its small- 
ness and its diminutive population, and my present 
aim is simply to present more fully its external aspect, 
which changed so quickly after 1848. The rapidity of 
the change may well be judged by a passage in Theophile 
Gautier's article* on Paul de Kock, published in 1870. 
No apology is necessary for transcribing it : 

" Those [he says] who were born after the Revolution 
of February 24, 1848, or a little before, cannot imagine 
what the Paris was like in which the heroes and heroines 
of Paul de Kock move ; it resembled Paris of to-day 
so little that I sometimes ask myself, on seeing these 
broad streets, these great boulevards, these vast squares, 
these interminable lines of monumental houses, these 
splendid quarters which have replaced the market- 
gardens, if it is really the city in which I passed my 
childhood. Paris, which is on the way to become the 
metropolis of the world, was then only the capital of 
France. One met French people, even Parisians, in 
its streets. No doubt foreigners came there, as always, 
to find pleasure and instruction ; but the means of 
transport were difficult, the ideal of rapidity did not 
rise above the classic mail-coach, and the locomotive, 
even in the form of a chimera, was not yet taking shape 
in the mists of the future. The physiognomy of the 
population had not therefore sensibly changed. 

" The provinces stayed at home much more than 
now, only coming to Paris on urgent business. One 
could hear French spoken on that boulevard which 

* Now printed in his "Portraits Contemporains." 
287 



VIE DE BOHEME 



was then called the Boulevard de Gand and which is 
now called the Boulevard des Italians. One frequently 
saw a type which is becoming rare and which, for me, 
is the pure Parisian type — white skin, pink cheeks, 
brown hair, light grey eyes, a well-shaped figure of 
moderate stature, and, in the women, a delicate plump- 
ness hiding small bones. Olive complexions and black 
hair were rare ; the South had not yet invaded us 
with its passionately pale tints and its furious gesticu- 
lations. The general aspect of faces was therefore rosy 
and smiling, with an air of health and good humour. 
Complexions now considered distingues would at that 
time have caused suspicions of illness. 

" The city was relatively very small, or at least its 
activity was restricted within certain limits that were 
seldom passed. The plaster elephant in which Gavroche 
found shelter raised its enormous silhouette on the 
Place de la Bastille, and seemed to forbid passers-by 
to go any further. The Champs Elysees, as soon as 
night fell, became more dangerous than the plain of 
Marathon ; the most adventurous stopped at the Place 
de la Concorde. The quarter of Notre Dame de Lorette 
only included vague plots of ground or wooden fences. 
The church was not built, and one could see from the 
boulevard the Butte Montmartre, with its windmills 
and its semaphore waving its arms on the top of the 
old tower. The Faubourg Saint-Germain went early 
to bed, and its solitude was but rarely disturbed by a 
tumult of students over a play at the Odeon. Journeys 
from one quarter to another were less frequent ; 
omnibuses did not exist, and there were sensible differ- 
ences of feature, costume, and accent between a native 

288 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

of the Rue du Temple and an inhabitant of the Rue 
Montmartre." 

Gautier is referring in this passage to the Paris of 
his childhood, in the second decade of the nineteenth 
century, but, though by his Bohemian days the Church 
of Notre Dame de Lorette had been built, omnibuses 
had been instituted, and railway stations were about 
to break out on the face of Paris, his picture would 
have remained substantially true of Paris during the 
whole of Louis Philippe's reign. There was a certain 
amount of change during the time : the Palais Royal 
declined in popularity, ceasing to be "a scene of 
extravagance, dissipation, and debauchery not to be 
equalled in the world," as Coghlan's " Guide to Paris " 
put it ; a few old houses were pulled down here and 
there, and the desert patches on the outskirts began 
to be filled by a straggling population, but, in general, 
Louis Philippe's Paris can be considered as a stable 
whole. Most visitors to Paris do not, of course, realize 
the boundaries of the large circle which now forms the 
city, for they enjoy themselves at the centre, though 
they may, perhaps, remember how far from the ter- 
minus a train passes the fortifications. In Louis 
Philippe's day the outer line of boulevards, on which 
stood the fortifications and barrieres, was that second 
ring of to-day which even visitors reach at times ; a 
barriere existed at the Arc de Triomphe, at the Place 

289 T 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Pigalle, where the amusements of Montmartre only 
just begin, at the cemeteries of Pere Lachaise and 
Montparnasse. The actual diameter of the city was 
then about three miles, but for all practical purposes 
it was little more than two, for the outskirts were still 
occupied by large market-gardens, plots of land acquired 
for future use by speculators, with here and there some 
mushroom rows of houses, half finished and nearly 
empty, the work of a bankrupt who had too far anti- 
cipated the coming boom, farmyards, chicken-runs, 
cow-stalls, grass, odd weeds, and all the disfigurements 
of a landscape over which the impending march of a 
city has thrown a blight. Only on the northern 
heights were there still windmills and vineyards. These 
outskirts had only a scanty population, for there were 
no thousands of workpeople to spread over the heights 
of Belleville or Menilmontant, or southwards over 
Montrouge, so that it was easy for a starveling company 
of Bohemians, headed by the Desbrosses and Murger, to 
find shelter in an old farm by the Barri^re d'Enfer — 
now the busy Place Denfert-Rochereau — or for Balzac's 
Colonel Chabert to live in a tumble-down cottage well 
inside the boundaries. The fact was, as the dramatist 
Victorien Sardou has said in a passage of reminiscence,* 
that under Louis Philippe one-third of the total surface 
of Paris was not built on. There were gardens every- 
where, except in the very centre of the city, and on the 
* The preface to George Cain's "Coins de Paris." 
290 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

left bank, especially, houses were only dotted in the 
midst of orchards, kitchen-gardens, farmyards, and 
parks. It was this fact that made Paris, however 
quick the flame that burnt at her heart, in most respects 
a provincial city. Only in such a city could Bohemia 
perfectly have realized itself ; an industrial metropolis 
would have swallowed it or brushed it contemptuously 
aside. 

Paris, then, compared with herself of to-day, would 
have been almost unrecognizable. There was no sign 
of the rich and luxurious quarter which has grown up 
round the Champs Elysees, with its magnificent hotels 
and fine mansions. The Champs Elysees were used 
during the daytime for riding or driving, but there 
was hardly a house to be seen except two or three 
wretched cafes. After sunset it was madness to go 
past the rond-point, for beyond was the home of 
thieves and cut-throats, the Bois de Boulogne, needless 
to say, being in a much more wild state than to-day. 
The Pare Monceau was practically in the country, 
and even the Quartier du Roule, by the top of the Boule- 
vard Malesherbes, was all market-gardens when Rosa 
Bonheur lived there as a child. As for the Batignolles, 
that Kensington of modern Paris, its repute was as 
unsavoury as that of the London fields now respectably 
covered by Sloane Square and Sloane Street. The quarter 
chosen by wealth, as opposed to blue blood, which lived in 
dreary hotels surrounded by high walls in the Faubourg 

291 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Saint-Germain, lay in the neighbourhood of the present 
Saint-Lazare terminus. The favourite street was the 
Rue de la Pepiniere, continued by the Rue Saint- 
Lazare. Only a small part of the Rue de la Pepiniere 
is now left, most of it being called the Rue La Boetie, 
but it retains its old name between the Boulevard 
Malesherbes and the Rue Saint-Lazare. Another 
fashionable street was the Rue de Provence, which 
runs parallel to the south of the Rue Saint-Lazare. 
In the former was the famous house inhabited suc- 
cessively by seven of Balzac's courtesans,* in the 
latter the charming house of Baron Nucingen. Every 
Englishman knows the clamour and smell and garish 
shops of the Rue Saint-Lazare to-day, and the Rue de 
Provence is just a plain bourgeois thoroughfare of 
shops, cafes, flats, and a post-office. 

The fashionable boulevards have already appeared 
in a previous chapter, but a word must be said of the 
difference between the then and now of that brilliant 
corner of Paris which most Europeans and Americans 
see once before they die. To-day, without a doubt, 
the Boulevard des Capucines, which stretches from 
the Madeleine to the Opera, has the most distinguished 
and luxurious appearance. The Boulevard des Italiens 
beyond the Opera is dowdier and more workaday. In 
the days of Bohemia the Boulevard des Capucines 
had no social existence. It had as yet not been levelled 
* See "Lea Comediens sans le savoir." 
292 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

with the Rue Basse du Rempart, which, some fifteen 
feet below it, followed the course of the ancient moat ; 
it was flanked by plots of land on which new houses 
were being erected, and its only traffic was the omnibus 
which jogged between the Madeleine and the Bastille. 
The present Opera-house and Place de I'Opera were not 
existent, for the Opera stood just off the Boulevard des 
Italiens, beyond Tortoni's, while the Rue de la Paix 
came quietly into the boulevard at a sharp angle, 
instead of arriving in that busy open space, with Cook's 
office as its centre, over which traffic plies in all direc- 
tions with bewildering activity. The Avenue de I'Opera, 
also, was not known to Bohemia. At that day a 
pedestrian who wished to go direct from the top of 
the Rue de la Paix to the Louvre had to thread a 
maze of narrow streets — an example of which remains 
in the Rue des Petits Champs — which became meaner 
and more sinister as he neared the Louvre. The Louvre 
quarter, so close to brilliance and luxury, was a squalid 
plague-spot, that has since been thoroughly cleansed. 
The brotherhood of the Impasse du Doyenne, I suspect, 
were careful to have a companion when they ascended 
the Rue Froidmanteau or the Rue Traversi^re after 
dark. If one crosses the Avenue de I'Opera between 
the entrance of the Rue de I'Echelle on one side and 
the Rue Moli^re on the other, one will have exactly 
traversed the site of the infamous Rue de Langlade 
where in " Splendeurs et Miseres des Courtisanes " 

293 



VIE DE BOHEME 



Vautrin found Esther la Torpille on the verge of death, 
a propos of which Balzac has a lurid passage on the 
thick shadows, the flickering lights, the phantom 
forms, and disquieting sounds which characterized at 
nightfall this lacis de petites rues. 

On the north-east and the east of the Louvre lay 
the most unregenerate portion of Paris, a district as 
tortuous, narrow, and unhealthy as in the Middle Ages, 
yet the centre of Parisian commerce. Even to-day 
the visitor may wonder that such a district can exist 
in a capital city, when he ventures into the Rue 
Quincampoix, the Rue des Francs Bourgeois, and the 
other alleys which cut them at right angles. But at 
least this quarter has been cleared by the thorough 
reorganization of the Halles and by the construction 
of some large arteries, the Boulevard de Sebastopol, 
the Rue Rambuteau, the Rue Etienne Marcel, and the 
Rue de Turbigo. It is sufficient to glance at a map 
of Louis Philippe's Paris, such as Dulaure's, to see 
what a maze it was then. Save for the two narrow 
thoroughfares, the Rue Saint-Martin and the Rue 
Saint -Denis, going from north to south, it had hardly 
a single continuous street. A stroll in the region of 
the old church of Saint-Merri will show many of these 
streets in their original dimensions ; there is the Rue 
des Lombards, for instance, where Balzac's Matifat 
presided over the wholesale drug market, and the 
Rue Aubry le Boucher, formerly the Rue des Cinq 

294 




The Rue St. Denis 




Rue de la Tixeranderie 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

Diamants, where in the virtuous Anselme Popinot's 
shop the first measures were taken for the recon- 
struction of Cesar Birotteau's shattered fortunes. 
The darkness and insalubrity of this quarter are 
specially commented on at the beginning of Balzac's 
" Une Double Famille," where he says that a pedestrian 
coming from the Marais quarter to the quays near 
the Hotel de Ville by the Rue de I'Homme Arme and 
other streets — practically the route of the present 
Rue des Archives down to the Place Lobau — would 
think he was walking in underground cellars. This 
unsavoury network in the day of Bohemia continued 
right on to the quays, which have now been cleared 
by the construction of the Theatre and Place du 
Chatelet, the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt, the Place de 
I'Hotel de Ville, and the Place Lobau with its barracks. 
But in Louis Philippe's reign the Rue de la Vieille 
Lanterne, where poor Gerard de Nerval was found 
hanged, occupied the site of the stage of the Theatre 
Sarah Bernhardt, and instead of the Place Lobau 
the Rue de la Tixanderie and the Rue du Tourniquet - 
Saint- Jean forked at the back of the Hotel de Ville. 
The house described in " Une Double Famille " stood 
in the Rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, which was only 
five feet wide at its broadest and only cleaned when 
flooded by a shower. The inhabitants lit their lamps 
at five in June and never put them out in winter. 

Another typical specimen of the Paris I am describing 

295 



VIE DE BOHEME 



is to be seen in that curious confluence of three narrow 
streets, the Rues de la Lune, Beauregard, and de 
C16ry, just off the Boulevard Bonne Nouvelle. The 
Rue de la Lune is dominated by the forbidding portals 
of a gloomy church, and its cobble-stones are quite 
deserted even when the activity of the neighbouring 
boulevard is at its height. No flight of imagination 
is needed to realize its appropriateness as the scene of 
that tragic close to " Illusions Perdues," where in a 
garret Lucien writes drinking songs over the corpse 
of his wretched Coralie to pay the expenses of her 
burial. This street and the two others, which meet 
at an extraordinarily acute angled building, diverge 
into the squalor of the Rue Montorgueil. It is easier 
to see the conditions in which la vie de Boheme was 
passed in such spots as these than in the regions 
towards Montmartre. The Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne 
still exists, but to search there for the garret of Murger 
and Champfleury is disappointing. One ascends the 
cheerful Rue des Martyrs from Notre Dame de Lorette, 
with its prospect of the Sacre Cceur standing out 
against the open heavens, and on turning along the 
Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne one is confronted by a 
respectable, clean, sleepy street that might grace any 
neat provincial town in France. All suggestion of 
Bohemianism is remarkably absent, even on the top 
floors. In Murger's day this quarter was far less 
civilized, as may be seen from a water-colour sketch 

296 




Rue Pirouette 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

by Victor Hugo which hangs in the Carnavalet Museum. 
This represents the view southwards from the Rue de 
la Tour d'Auvergne — a wild foreground of uncultivated 
land with sombre trees and dilapidated fences, and in 
the distance all Paris spread out in panorama. 

The left bank has changed no less than the right. 
The luxurious quarter of the Faubourg Saint-Germain 
has spread immeasurably, and even where old streets 
remain, as many do in the Quartier Latin, their houses 
have been rebuilt. Many a Bohemian could probably 
have told a parallel to Champfleury's touching story 
of how, long after his mistress had left him, he witnessed 
by chance the demolition of an old wall of a house in 
the quarter, and there on the topmost story was laid 
bare the room, with its very wallpaper unchanged, 
where they spent so many happy months of youth 
and love. In particular, this part of Paris was cleared 
and aired by the construction of those two very 
important thoroughfares, the Boulevard Saint-Germain, 
which broke through a host of little streets, including 
the rampageous Rue Childebert, and the Boulevard 
Saint-Michel, which replaced and widened the straggling 
old Rue de la Harpe. Before these were made, the 
Quartier Latin had not a single main street, though 
it was not quite so uncivilized as the Halles quarter, 
nor so large. Southwards by the gardens of the 
Luxembourg it soon became comparatively bourgeois 
and spacious with pleasant houses and gardens, built 

297 



VIE DE BOHEME 



originally for rich nobles and prelates, but relinquished 
at the dictation of fashion to prosperous tradespeople 
and officials like the Phellions and Thuilliers of Balzac's 
" Les Petits Bourgeois." Searches for vestiges of 
Bohemia in general on either side of the Boulevard 
Saint-Germain are fruitful enough ; many an hotel 
garni recalls that in which Lucien first hid his diminished 
head, or the early home of Arsene Houssaye, when Nini 
Yeux Noirs was his divinity and revolution his creed. 
Specific quests, however, are apt to be disappointing. 
The Rue des Quatre Vents, the headquarters of d'Arthez' 
cenacle, in Balzac's time " one of the most horrible 
streets in Paris," remains blamelessly near Saint- 
Sulpice as dull and decent as the Rue de la Tour 
d'Auvergne ; and the Rue Vaugirard, where the second 
cenacle, headed by Petrus Borel, held its frantic 
orgies round the punch-bowl and where Murger wrote 
his " Scenes de la Vie de Boheme," is devoid of any 
spark of romance. On the other hand, a visit to the 
delightful Cour de Rohan, just off the Boulevard 
Saint-Germain, will land you en pleine Boheme, as will 
certain streets leading up towards the Church of Saint - 
Etienne du Mont, or the narrow passages by the Church 
of Saint-Severin. It is just too late to see another 
unmistakable relic of Balzac's Paris, for the Maison 
Vauquer of " P6re Goriot " has just been pulled down. 
Yet to make a pilgrimage to its site gives a very good 
impression of the gloominess which Bohemian high 

298 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

spirits had usually to combat. The Maison Vauquer 
stood near the junction of the Rue des Postes and 
the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, now the Rue 
Lhomond, and the Rue Tournefort, south of the 
Pantheon. I have walked down the Rue Lhomond 
at three on a sunny autumn afternoon, yet I met no 
soul in this dingy street, which seemed to catch not 
a ray of the sun's illumination. It is crossed by two 
sinister little lanes, the Rue Amyot, at the corner of 
which Cerizet, in " Les Petits Bourgeois," carried on 
the business of a small usurer in a loathsome, grimy 
house, and the Rue du Pot de Fer, before coming to 
which one passes a high, dark barrack, heavy iron bars 
shielding its dirty lower windows, the " Institution 
Lhomond pour I'education des jeunes filles " — poor 
jeunes filles ! When the Rue Tournefort meets the 
Rue Lhomond there is a very steep descent, accurately 
described by Balzac, into the Rue de I'Arbal^te. 
Almost any of the mournful dwellings with weedy 
gardens on this slope might have been the hideous 
pension where Goriot died, while at the corner of the 
Rue de I'Arbalete there is a veritable dungeon, only 
two tiny windows in cracked frames piercing its high, 
blank wall. If you proceed into the narrow Rue 
Mouffetard, one long, smelly vegetable market, you 
will then realize the general state of all but the best 
of Louis Philippe's Paris. 

It was part of the old world, unconscious of its 

299 



VIE DE BOHEME 



impending reformation in the light of the new ideals 
of comfort and sanitation which were to become the 
accented notes of modernity. It was a provincial 
city of small compass with no industrial suburbs, no 
railways — let alone trams or river steamboats — and 
a population of considerably less than a million con- 
centrated for the most part in its overcrowded quarters 
by the river banks, where the excitement of its spiritual 
life made up for the deficiencies of its material well- 
being. There were few public buildings of recent 
construction ; the Louvre was still disfigured by the 
debris of the Place du Carrousel ; the Hotel de Ville, 
Notre Dame, and the Palais de Justice were hemmed 
in by crabbed streets and thickly clustering old houses. 
Private gardens were many, but public squares were 
few. Except for the boulevards the streets had 
medieval paving with central gutters, from which all 
and sundry were liberally splashed, so that for well- 
dressed persons to venture in them on foot was an 
impossibility. An American writing in 1835 says of 
them : " They are paved with cubical stones of eight 
or ten inches, convex on the upper surface like the 
shell of a terrapin ; few have room for side-walks, 
and where not bounded by stores they are as dark as 
they were under King Pepin. Some seem to be water- 
tight."* They were seldom swept, never flushed, and 
primitively lit. The noise, too, except on the boule- 
* Sanderson: " Paris in 1835." 
300 



THE PARIS OF BOHEMIA 

vards, was deafening and incessant. Not only did the 
eternal rumbling of wheels over cobblestones and the 
sharp clatter of stumbling hoofs assail the ear, but 
also the ringing of bells, the rattle of water-carriers' 
buckets, the din of barrel-organs and itinerant singers, 
and all those street cries of fish-sellers, clothes-merchants, 
rag and bone men, glaziers, umbrella menders, and 
fruit-vendors so picturesque in isolated survival, but 
so unbearable in the ensemble of their heyday. It 
would be a mistake, however, to imagine this Paris 
as sleepy, stagnant, or unpricked by the progressive 
spirit ; on the contrary, she was exceedingly wide- 
awake. But, whereas the Englishman at once trans- 
lates his progressive idea into mechanism, the French- 
man prefers to let the first thorough ferment take 
place in his mind alone, allowing it, if need be, to 
inspire in him the primitive actions of attack and 
defence, but leaving more complicated handiwork to 
a later date, when the logic of change has been worked 
out, according to which he then acts rigorously. In 
this light the Paris of Bohemia must be regarded — 
picturesquely stagnant externally, seething inwardly — 
and of this condition Bohemia was the type. Its 
extravagant or tattered dress, its Rabelaisian speech 
and self-indulgence, the antiquated splendours of the 
Impasse du Doyenne and the equally antiquated 
hovels and garrets of its poverty, its disregard of public 
convenience and its real antagonism to democracy, 

301 



VIE DE BO HE ME 



were externals voluntarily or of necessity adopted 
from an earlier age ; they were the old bottles which 
served for a moment to hold and to flavour with a 
distinctive tang the new wine of the Romantic vintage. 
Other vintages of equal potency have quickened men's 
hearts since then, and every new age, whether its ideals 
be artistic or social, will have its particular ferment 
that will find its appropriate vessels, but the past can 
never return any more than the first delirious headi- 
ness can be restored to an old wine that now charms 
with its matured delicacy. Bohemia is a thing of the 
past with that irrevocable Paris with its tortuous, 
noisy streets, its high gables, its wide skirts and em- 
broidered waistcoats, its 

Fashionables musquSs, gueux a mine incongrue, 
Grisettes au pied leste, au sourire agaganl, 
Beaux tilbury s dorSs comme Viclair passant — 

the Paris of Balzac, the Paris of Roger de Beauvoir 
and Alfred de Musset, the Paris of Theophile Gautier 
and Gerard de Nerval, the Paris of Rodolphe, Schaunard, 
and Marcel, the Paris, in fine, which was the only home 
of les vrais Bohemiens de la vraie Boheme. 



INDEX 



Names of characters in fiction are printed in italics. 



Abbantes, Duchesse d', 71 
Alton-Shee, see Aulnis, Due d' 
Ampere, Jean-Jacques, 36, 

37, 51 
Amusements of Bohdrne, 176- 

178, 182-186, 198-200, 214, 

215, 252-281 
Ancelot, Madame, 71, 72, 95 
Anglemont, Privat d', 224- 

228, 262, 278, 279, 280 
Anglomania in Paris, 87, 88 
Arsouille, Milord, see Battut, 

Charles de la 
Arthez, Daniel d\ 14, 15, 127- 

129, 298 
Artois, Comte d', 23 
Arvers, Felix, 102 
Asselineau, Charles, 56, 58, 

59, 61, 109 
Aulnis, Due d', 70, 78, 79, 80, 

91, 275 



B 

Badouillards, Les, 224, 225 
Bal BuUier, 279, 280 
Mabille, 280 



Bal Musard, 270, 276 
Balzac, Honore de, 44, 45, 
67, 71, 72, 73, 78, 81, 
99, 129, 164, 165, 258, 
285, 286, 302 
characters in the novels 
of, 14, 15, 16, 49, 59- 
61, 62, 67-69, 75, 76, 
78, 80-86, 99, 102, 
111-114,127-129,163- 
165, 256, 261, 262, 264, 
268, 271, 274, 290, 292, 
294, 295, 296, 298, 
299 
Banville, Theodore de, 33, 
73, 104, 109, 226, 227, 233, 
277 
Barbara, Charles, 248-250, 

265, 269 
Barbemuche, Carolus, see Bar- 
bara, Charles 
Barri^re d'Enfer, Bohemian 

colony at the, 239-243 
Barriere, Theodore, 244 
Bastide, Jules, 36, 87 
Battut, Charles de la, 90, 

91, 275, 276 
Baudelaire, Charles, 13, 15, 
33, 67, 61, 66, 230-233, 
261 



3G3 



INDEX 



Beauvoir, Roger de, 13, 44, 
73, 76, 93-97, 101, 102, 
106, 168, 169, 177, 186, 
187, 212, 255, 256, 259, 273, 
284, 302 
Belgiojoso, Prince, 71, 93, 102 

Princess, 13, 71, 86 
Bequet, 101, 106 
Ber anger, 23, 24 
Berlioz, Hector, 73, 122, 269 
Berry, assassination of tlie 

Due de, 23 
Bisson, the brothers, 236, 237 
Bixiou, 82, 84-86, 99 
Blanche, Doctor, 190 
Boeuf Enrage, Cabaret du, 

227 
Boheme, La, meaning of the 
term, 1-12 
its place and period, 12- 

20 
rise and fall, 1830-1848, 

21-34 
general characteristics of, 

111-129 
Romanticism of, 25, 26, 
29-31, 40-50, 56-64, 
131-159, 200-204, 272 
its place in Parisian so- 
ciety, 65-68, 73, 76, 77, 
110 
amusements of, 176-178, 
182-186, 198-200, 214, 
215, 252-281 
drama in, 132-136, 140, 
141, 175, 176, 272-274 
life of, 126-251 
love in, 173-176, 178- 
182, 213-218, 246-248 
music in, 249, 250 



Boheme, La, the Paris of, 282- 
302 
smoking in, 151, 152 
See also Cenacle, the 
Second : Boheme Ga- 
lante ; Buveurs d'Eau ; 
Gautier ; Murger, &c. 
Galante, La, 158-193, 
194, 203, 205, 206, 207, 
210, 216, 221 
see Doyenne, Impasse du 
Boissard, 231 

Borel, Petrus, 15, 41, 43, 57, 

58, 61, 133, 135, 136-140, 

144, 149-155, 169, 177, 201, 

298 

Bouchardy, Joseph, 136, 140, 

152, 155, 156, 218, 272 
Bouffe, 101 

Bouginier's nose, 223, 224 
Bouilhet, Louis, 230 
Boulevard des Italiens, 74, 

112, 121, 288, 292, 293 
" Bousingots," 55, 62, 144 
Briffaut, 101, 106 
Brot, Alphonse, 136, 137 
BuUier, 279 

Bal, 279, 280 
Burnett, George, 17 
Buveurs d'Eau, Societe des, 

212, 233-242, 266-268 
Byron, Lord, influence of on 
Boheme, 35-37, 64, 125, 
134, 151 



Cab ANON, Emile, 97, 101, 102, 

106 
Cabaret du Boeuf Enrage, 227 



804 



INDEX 



Cabaret Dinochan, 261, 262 
of Mere Cadet, 263 
of Mere Saguet, 129, 130 
Cabot, 237, 238 
Cadet, Cabaret of Mere, 263 
Cafe Anglais, 91, 96, 259, 260 
Plardy, 96, 259, 260 
Momus, 198, 204, 246, 

248, 265-268 
de rOdeon, 261 
d'Orsay, 181 
de Paris, 79, 86, 87, 91, 

169, 259, 260 
Riche, 259, 260 
Tortoni, 13, 86, 259 
Camp, Maxime du, 40-42, 94, 
95, 132, 134, 142, 150, 153, 
154, 156, 222, 228-230, 
284 
Cancan, The, 80, 91, 275, 276 
Carnaud, 278, 279 
Carnival, 80, 89-91, 274-276 
Cenaele, the first, 129-132 
the second, 126-157, 158, 
159, 203, 271, 272, 298 
of the Rue des Quatre 
Vents, 127-129 
Cercle des Etrangers, 269 
Chahut, The, 275 
Champfleury, 98, 99, 101, 102, 
219, 235, 238, 243-250, 256, 
262, 266-268, 272, 296, 297 
Chanteraine, Salle, 221, 222 
Charles X, 23, 24, 200 
Chartreuse, La, see Closerie 

des Lilas 
Chasseriau, 185, 193 
Chateaubriand, Due de, 37, 

71 
Chatillon, 169, 185, 193 



Chaudesaigues, 103 
Chaumiere, La, 97, 177, 204, 

225, 242, 277, 278 
Chicard, 275, 276 
Chintreuil, 237, 238, 243 
Childebert, La, 222-225 
Cloitre Saint-Merri, insurrec- 
tion of the, 27, 59, 128, 

161 
Clopet, Leon, 136, 137, 152 
Closerie des Lilas, La, 97, 277- 

281 
Coleridge, S. T., 10, 17, 18 
Colline, 126, 198 - 218, 238, 

241, 250, 263, 265-267, 281 
Colon, Jenny, 174-176, 190 
Cormenin, Louis de, 230 
Corot, 185, 193 
Courbet, 201, 250 
Courtille, Descente de la, 90 
Cretaine, Boulangerie, 262, 

273 
Cydalise, 179, 180, 193, 213, 

257 



D 

Dagneaux's Restaurant, 230, 

263 
Dancing, 80, 91, 155, 177, 178, 

181-185, 204, 225, 270, 274- 

281 
Delacroix, 48, 122, 169, 184 
Delvau, Alfred, 159, 160, 227, 

235, 238, 245, 247, 248, 261- 

263, 267, 268 
Desbrosses, the brothers, 237- 

241, 243, 290 
Dinochan, Cabaret, 261, 262 



305 



U 



INDEX 



Dondey, Theopile, see 

O'Neddy, Philothee 
Dore, Gustave, 192 
Dorval, Marie, 13, 273 
Doyenne, Impasse du, Bohe- 
mian brotherhood in, 
158-193, 203, 206, 210, 
213, 214, 229, 257, 276, 
301 
Priory of, 166 
Rue du, 164, 165, 168 
Doze, Mademoiselle, 106 
Drama in Boheme, 140, 141, 
175, 176, 221, 222, 272- 
274 ; and see " Hernani " 
Dress of the Romantic period, 
92, 96, 131, 139, 141, 145, 
151, 239, 234-259 
Dumas, Alexandre, 13, 55, 
76, 155, 184, 190, 198, 226 
Duponchel, 97 
Duras, Duchesse de, 71 
Dyer, George, 17 



E 



" EcoLE de bon sens," 201, 
203 



F 



Faubourg Saint - Germain, 

69, 70, 297 
Fauchery, 245, 246, 262, 277 
Flaubert, Gustave, 33, 201, 

228-230 
Flicoteaux's Restaurant, 264, 

265 



Fontenay-aux-Roses, 200, 216 
Frascati, 269 
Eraser, Major, 91, 92 



G 



Gambling, see Paris 

Gautier, Theophile, 13, 15, 
16, 20, 33, 44, 45, 50, 55, 
56, 76, 110, 122, 126, 129, 
132-157, 160, 162, 164-173, 
177-180, 183-189, 193, 194, 
201, 207, 212, 218, 253, 269, 
272, 282, 287-289, 302 

Gavarni, 13, 169, 256, 259 

Gay, Delphine, 72, 73, 93 
Sophie, 72, 73 

Gigoux, Jean, 61 

Gilbert, 53 

Girardin, Delphine de, see 
Gay, Delphine 
Emile de, 30, 103 

Goncourt, the brothers de, 
201 

Graziano's Restaurant, 136, 
147, 148 

Grisettes, 216-218, 250, 258 
259, 274, 277-280 

Guichardet, 262, 263 

Guigard, Joannis, 267 

Guilbert, 237 

Guizot, 200 



H 

Habeneck, 269 

Hardy, Cafe, 95, 259, 260 



306 



INDEX 



Haricots, Hotel des, 279 
Heine, Heinrich, 275 
" Hernani," performance of 
in 1830, 25, 26, 28, 132- 
136, 201, 221, 255, 272 
Hill's Tavern, 261 
Houssaye, Arsene, 76, 116, 
158, 160-163, 168-175, 177- 
189, 194, 207, 244, 256, 261, 
269, 272, 298 
Hugo, Madame, 72 

Victor, 13, 25, 28, 31, 32, 
45-48, 55, 62, 72, 
73, 122, 129-132, 
144, 201, 285, 297 
worshipped in Bo- 
heme, 25, 45-48, 
52, 122, 132-136, 
148, 152, 153, 156, 
158, 184, 201, 244 



Impasse du Doyenne, see 
Doyenne 



Janin, Jules, 189, 196, 208, 
273 

" Jeune-France " section of 
Romanticists, the, 45, 57, 
58, 61, 94, 95, 139, 142, 
150-153 

Johnson, Samuel, 10 



Jonson, Ben, 10 
Jouv, de, 236 



K 

Karr, Alphonse, 238, 280 
Kock, Paul de, 285, 287 



Lafayette, 24 
Lamartine, 52, 53, 55, 73 
Lamb, Charles, 11, 17, 173, 

174 
Lassailly, 44 
Lautour-Mezeray, 103 
Leconte de I'lsle, 233 
Legendre, Madame, 222, 223 
Leleux, Adolphe, 184 
Lelioux, 235, 240 
Le Poitevin, 230 
Louis, XVm, 23 
Louis Philippe, 13, 22, 24, 26, 

27, 59, 79, 200, 201 
Love in Boheme, 173-176, 

178-182, 213-218, 246-248 
Lucas, Le Petit, 261 



M 

Mabille, Bal, 280 
Mackeat, Augustus, 136, 141, 
155, 272 



307 



INDEX 



Magny's Restaurant, 263 

Maison d'Or, La, 96 

" Mai du Siecle," Le, 35-64, 

252, 253, 255 
" Mai Romantique," see " Mai 

du Siecle " 
Malitourne, Armand, 101, 106 
Maquet, Augustus, see Mac- 

keat 
Marcel, 15, 16, 21, 119, 120, 

126, 198 - 218, 244, 248, 

250, 254, 265-267, 271, 277, 

280, 282 
Marilhat, 169, 185 
Maurier, George Du, 7-9 
Mediaevalism, worship of by 

French Romantics, 48-46, 

94, 95, 134, 141, 142, 150- 

153, 201, 210, 211, 221, 224 
Mercoeur, Elisa, 29 
Meyerbeer, 175, 176, 270 
Mimi, 213-218, 246-248, 258, 

259, 277, 281 
Mogador, Celeste, 280 
Momus, Cafe, 198, 204, 246, 

248, 265-268 
Monnier, Henri, 97-101, 275 
Monselet, Charles, 226, 233, 

262 
Montmartre, 67, 216, 288- 

290, 296, 297 
Moreau, Hegesippe, 29, 53, 

261 
Murger, Henry, 15, 16, 33, 
194-197, 232-251, 256, 
261, 262, 266-268, 269, 
272, 277, 280, 290, 296, 
298 
" Scenes de la Vie de 
Boheme," 1, 11, 12, 15, 



16, 21, 33, 34, 119, 
120, 126, 147, 159, 160, 
194-218, 219, 237, 238, 
241-249, 254, 263, 265- 

267, 272, 273, 277, 298 
Bohemian generation of, 

64, 200-251, 263, 266- 

268, 270, 271, 277-281 
Musard, 14, 269, 270, 276 

Bal, 270, 276 
Musette, 213-218, 246, 247, 

254, 258, 259, 277, 281 
Music in Boheme, 249, 250 
in Paris, 13, 14, 71, 73, 
269-271 
Musset, Alfred de, 13, 17, 48, 
71, 76, 92, 93, 102, 106, 
115, 184, 202, 244, 302 



N 

Nadar, 233, 235, 237, 238, 
242, 262, 266-268 

Nanteuil, Celestin, 133, 136, 
141, 142, 149, 155, 169, 184 

Nerval, Gerard de, 13, 16, 18, 
133-136, 143-146, 148, 149, 
154, 155, 160, 162-193, 207, 
212, 227, 253, 272, 295, 302 

Nodier, 42, 72, 73 

Noel, 235, 237, 238 



O 



O'Neddy, Philothee, 40, 56, 
124, 125, 136, 137, 141, 
150-153, 155 



308 



INDEX 



Opera, 79, 96, 97, 104, 270, 

271, 293 

Bal de 1', 204, 245, 274, 

276 

Ourliac, Edmond, 76, 169- 

172, 177, 186, 187, 272, 275 



Palais Royal, 268, 289 
Palferine, Conite de la, 14, 102, 

111-114, 262 
Paphos, 269 
Paris, 11, 12-15, 24, 27, 66, 

67, 105, 116, 282-302 
balls in, 155, 177, 178, 

181-185, 204, 225, 270, 

274-281 
Cafe de, 79, 86, 87, 91, 

169, 259, 260 
drama in, 221, 222, 271- 

274 ; and see " Her- 

nani " 
gambling in, 268, 269 
literary salons in, 70-73 
music in, 13, 14, 71, 73, 

269-271 
restaurants, &c., in, 121, 

129, 130, 136, 147, 148, 

169, 177, 181, 198, 204, 

211, 225, 227, 230, 246, 

248, 259-268 ; and see 

Cabaret ; Cafe 
Society in, 65-86, 107, 

108 
student life in, 221-225, 

231 ; and see under 

Boheme 



Pelloquet, Theodore, 197, 251 
Petit Lucas, Le, see Lucas 
Moulin Rouge, see Gra- 
ziano 
PMmie TeinturUre, 213-217, 

247, 266 
Pilodo, 275 
Pimodan, Hotel, 231 
Piton, le patissier, 262 
Planche, Gustave, 229 
Pomare, Reine, 280 
Ponsard, 201 
Pottier, 237 
Prado, 275 
Privat d'Anglemont, see An- 

glemont 
Punch, a Romantic drink, 150 



Q 



QuARTiER Latin, the, 8, 22, 
75, 160, 170, 221-227, 231- 
233, 249, 250, 262-265, 276- 
280, 297-299 



R 

Rastignac, 14, 75, 78, 80-82, 

256, 261 
Recamier, Madame, 36, 37, 

71 
Restaurants, see under Paris 
Revolution of 1830, the, 22, 

24-34, 200 
Rocher de Cancale, Le, 121, 

211, 260, 261 



309 



INDEX 



Rodolphe, 15, 119, 120, 126, 
198-218, 236, 237, 241, 242, 
244, 248, 253, 265-267, 273, 
277, 302 
Rogier, Camille, 101, 102, 145, 
167-172, 177-180, 184, 187, 
193, 256 
Romantic Period in France, 
the, 12, 16, 20 
salons of, 70-73 
Romanticism, 25, 26, 28-32, 
35-64, 129-159, 201-203, 
221-224, 252, 253, 255, 284, 
301, 302 
Romieu, 97, 98, 102 
Roqueplan, Camille, 169 

Nestor, 13, 17, 104, 105, 
111, 162, 169, 212 
Rousseau, 185 

Rubempre, Lucien de, 14, 16, 

62, 75, 76, 85, 256, 264, 271 

Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, 

210-212, 240, 242, 243, 

296, 297 

de la Vieille Lanterne, 

192, 295 
Saint-Germain - des -Pres, 
Bohemian colony in, 
187, 188 



Saguet, Cabaret of Mere, 129, 

130 
Sainte-Beuve, 13, 17, 28, 52, 

53, 122, 129-132, 157 
Saint- Victor, Paul de, 191, 

192 



Sand, George, 16, 17, 93 
Sandeau, Jules, 188, 189 
" Scenes de la Vie de Bo- 

heme," see under Murger 
Schann, 232, 237, 238, 242, 

245, 248, 249, 266-268, 269 
Schaunard, 15, 16, 126, 159, 

198-218, 232, 238, 248, 250, 

253, 263, 265-268, 271, 280, 

281, 302 
Seigneur, Jehan du, 136, 137, 

139-141, 148-153, 155 
Senancour, 37 
Seymour, Lord, 79, 88-90 
Shakespeare, 10 
Smoking in Boheme, 151, 152 
Stael, Madame de, 37 
Steele, Richard, 17 
Students, life of Parisian, 221- 

225, 231 
Sue, Eugene, 70, 285 



Tabar, 237 

Tattet, Alfred, 102, 103, 106 
Thackeray, 264 
Theatre Bobino, 263, 271 
Fran^ais, 133-136 
du Luxembourg, see 

Theatre Bobino 
Montparnasse, 263 
des Varietes, ball at, 274 
Thom, Napoleon, 136 
Tolstoi, Monsieur de, 236, 240 
Tortoni's Cafe, 13, 86, 259 
Tournachon, F., see Nadar 
" Tout Paris," Le, 73-76 



310 



INDEX 



" Trilby," 7, 8 

Trois Freres ProveiiQaux, Les, 
121, 169 



V 

Vabke, Jules, 56, 133, 136- 

138, 140, 155 
Vastine, 237 
Vauquer, La Maison, 14, 16, 

81, 298, 299 
Vernet, Horace, 203 
Veron, Doctor, 103, 104 
Vigny, Alfred de, 17, 28, 52, 

53. 55, 73 



Villain, 237 

Villiers de I'Isle Adam, 233 
Vincent, Charles, 241, 242 
Viot's Restaurant, 263 
Vitu, 277 

" Viveurs," Les, 70, 76-108, 
204, 231, 275, 276 



W 

Wallon, Jean, 238, 250, 266- 

268 
Wattier, 185, 193 



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